BY 

THE 

SAME  AUTHOR 

THE 

MUSIC    AND 

HYMNODY 

OF    THE    METHODIST 

HYMNAL 

Crown  8vo. 

Net,  $1.25 

A  YEAR 


^^1  OF  fniiio^^ 

27  1933 


HYMN  STORlf^ 


o.rH^^'' 


A     PRIMER     OF     HYMNOLOGY 


BY 


CARL  F.  PRICE 


THE    METHODIST    BOOK    CONCERN 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,    19 14,  by 
CARL  F.  PRICE 


TO  NATHANIEL  STEELMAN  GOFF, 
FOR  TWENTY  YEARS  A  FAITH- 
FUL   SUNDAY    SCHOOL  TEACHER 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/cletails/fhymnstorieOOpric 


preface 

This  little  book  is  presented  as  a  primer  of 
hymnolog}^  for  the  purpose  of  awakening  among 
Sunday  school  scholars  a  greater  interest  in  our 
hymns.  It  consists  of  a  series  of  fifty-two  hymn- 
stories,  one  for  each  Sabbath  of  the  year,  told  in 
simple  form  without  any  attempt  to  give  a  critical 
history  of  the  hymns.  The  writer  is  grateful  to 
Professor  Karl  P.  Harrington  and  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Charles  S.  Nutter  for  helpful  suggestions  in  the 
preparation  of  these  hymn-stories :  and  to  Silas  H. 
Paine  for  access  to  his  manuscripts.  Some  of  the 
stories  have  never  before  appeared  in  any  book; 
others,  already  well-known,  have  been  drawn  from 
authoritative  sources  of  hymnology.  All  of  the 
hymns  are  to  be  found  in  the  new  Methodist  Sun- 
day School  Hymnal,  and  the  number  in  parenthesis 
following  the  first  line  of  the  hymn  on  each  page  of 
this  book  refers  to  the  number  of  the  hymn  in  that 
Hymnal. 

Superintendents  can  profitably  spend  a  few 
minutes  each  Sunday  in  telling  the  school  the  story 
of  a  hymn,  preferably  in  their  own  words,  adapting 
to  the  audience  the  material  on  the  printed  page, 
or  reading  it  directly  from  this  book.  The  story 
should  be  followed  by  the  singing  of  the  hymn. 
While  the  plan  of  this  book  follows  a  hypothetical 
calendar,  the  occasional  hymns  will  be  found  not 
to  fit  the  actual  calendar  of  any  year.  Palm  Sun- 
day and  Easter,  for  instance,  are  movable  feasts, 
and  even  our  fixed  holidays,  to  which  certain  hymns 
refer,  may  fall  nearer  to  some  other  Sabbath  than 
the  one  herein  designated.  Then,  too,  ^Missionary 
Sunday  sometimes  falls  on  the  fifth  Sunday  of  the 
7 


8  PREFACE 

month  instead  of  the  fourth ;  or  else  regularly  on 
the  first  Sunday  of  the  month.  Therefore,  the 
superintendent  may  use  his  own  discretion  in  plan- 
ning the  course  of  hymn-stories  to  fit  the  calendar 
of  his  year,  or  to  fulfill  any  other  plan  he  may 
devise. 

The  teacher  may  find  it  helpful  to  tell  these 
hymn-stories  to  his  class,  and  thus  to  give 
incentive  to  each  scholar  to  memorize  the  great 
hymns  of  the  church.  No  one  can  ever  measure 
the  influence  in  after-life  of  a  hymn  once  fastened 
in  a  child's  memory.  ^lany  a  sinful  man  has  been 
brought  back  to  God  by  a  hymn,  learned  in  child- 
hood, forcing  its  message  upon  his  conscience  in 
some  critical  moment.  Many  a  Christian  has  been 
steadied  through  temptation  or  sorrow  by  such  a 
hymn.  Let  us  not  be  derelict,  therefore,  in  giving 
our  Sunday  school  scholars  the  full  benefit  of  our 
hymnodic  heritage,  that  their  lives  may  be  enriched 
by  the  spirit  of  Christian  song. 

Carl  F.  Price. 

New  York  City,  October  i,  1914. 


3ntrobuction 

Happily  the  day  of  the  irresponsible  songbook  is 
past.  With  the  advent  of  the  new  Methodist  Sun- 
day School  Hymnal  there  has  broken  upon  us  a  new 
light.  As  we  thumb  its  pages  there  dawns  upon  us 
the  consciousness  that  at  last  the  church  has  recog- 
nized the  possibilities  of  song  on  the  impression- 
able nature  when  life  is  young,  and  has  adapted 
itself  to  utilize  that  method  of  spiritual  conquest. 
The  simple  dignity  inherent  in  its  mechanical 
make-up  allures  the  way  to  the  rich  fields  that  lie 
within  its  covers.  It  appears  that  scarcely  anything 
of  real  value  touching  the  needs  of  youth  and 
maturity,  that  might  be  expected  in  such  a  book,  has 
been  ignored.  The  fullness  of  it  is  fountainlike — 
overflowing.  The  wonder  is  that,  in  the  relatively 
small  compass  of  less  than  three  hundred  hymns,  it 
is  so  near  completeness.  Its  themes  are  diverse, 
dealing  with  such  structural  truths  as  are  essential 
in  the  making  of  character  and  the  enrichment  of 
life — the  fact  of  God,  God  in  Christ,  personal  ex- 
perience, service,  consolation.  Scriptures,  missions, 
great  days  in  the  church,  such  as  Christmas  and 
Easter,  patriotism,  and  a  long  Hst  of  themes  inter- 
linked indissolubly  with  the  symmetry  of  the  Chris- 
tian life.  It  has  a  hymn  for  every  heart — a  message 
for  every  time  of  crisis — a  melody  for  every  emo- 
tion. 

To  anyone  who  has  given  any  considerable 
thought  to  the  effect  of  bright,  sparkling,  cheery 
songs  upon  childhood  and  youth,  rather  than  those 
that  are  morbidly  depressing,  there  will  come  a  sense 
of  deep  satisfaction  by  glancing  over  the  titles  of 


10  INTRODUCTION 

the  hymns.  Look  at  these  luminous  lines:  ''Come, 
let  us  join  our  cheerful  songs/'  'Tairest  Lord 
Jesus/'  **Now  thank  we  all  our  God/'  ''Singing  for 
Jesus,  our  Saviour  and  King/'  "The  joyful  morn  is 
breaking/'  "Hark!  ten  thousand  harps  and  voices/' 
"Joy,  joy,  immortal  joy/'  All  these  and  more  are 
indicative  of  the  radiant  spirit  that  leaps  up  to  meet 
the  fresh,  young  soul  as  it  timidly  faces  the  mys- 
teries of  life. 

Richly  fraught  as  the  Hymnal  is  of  itself,  its  worth 
may  well  be  emphasized.  This  is  the  happy  con- 
ception that  lies  at  the  heart  of  A  Year  of  Hymn 
Stories.  To  know  the  hymns  in  a  crude,  indifferent 
way  is  not  enough ;  to  sing  them  with  no  grasp  of 
their  great  meaning  still  fails  to  reach  the  desired 
end ;  frequently  more  must  be  added — a  ray  of 
light,  a  touch  of  color,  a  flash  of  fire.  What  is 
better  than  to  group  around  a  hymn  here  and  there 
an  attractive  cluster  of  illustrative  material?  A 
Year  of  Hymn  Stories  tends  to  fix  in  one's  mind 
special  hymns  running  through  the  year  upon  which 
the  emphasis  is  placed ;  besides  this — it  is  suggestive 
of  the  importance  of  the  Hymnal  in  the  school. 

With  some  hint  of  prophetic  vision  the  Meth- 
odist Sunday  School  Hymnal  has  been  proclaimed 
a  lasting  triumph.  Not  too  great  is  the  challenge 
of  its  merit,  for  as  a  standard  of  hymnody  it  cannot 
be  ignored.  Its  spiritual  message,  outbreathed  from 
poetry  of  the  finest  lyric  charm  coupled  w^ith  a  cer- 
tain high  musical  excellence,  gives  it  the  quality  of 
permanence.  It  should  become  a  fixed  part  of  the 
Sunday  school  curriculum — a  musical  standard  of 
religious  instruction — an  attractive  aid  in  teaching 
the  wonderful  truths  of  that  Kingdom  where  song 
itself  shall  have  no  end. 

George  W.  Farmer. 

Derry,  New  Hampshire. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES  ii 

Jf ir£it  feunbap :  ^eto  gear's; 

''Another  year  is  dawning!"   (263) 
Frances  Ridley  Havergal,  1836-1879 

Miss  Havergal,  who  wrote  the  famous  New 
Year's  hymn, 

Another   year   is    dawning! 

Dear  Master,  let  it  be 
In  working  or  in  waiting, 
Another  year  with  Thee, 

spent  her  Hfe  ^'in  working  and  in  waiting"  for 
the  Master.  In  August,  1850,  before  she  was  four- 
teen years  old,  she  entered  Miss  Teed's  school, 
where  the  influences  over  her  were  very  helpful. 
The  following  year,  she  says,  'T  committed  my  soul 
to  the  Saviour,  and  earth  and  heaven  seemed 
brighter  from  that  moment/'  She  earnestly  strove 
to  make  each  year  after  that  hallowed  experience 

Another  year  of  service, 
Of  witness  for  Thy  love. 

Wherever  she  went  in  her  frequent  travels  she 
was  constantly  asking  people  whether  or  not  they 
knew  the  joys  of  salvation,  and  by  thus  being  a  wit- 
ness she  led  hundreds  of  souls  to  the  cross. 

Another  year  of  training 
For  holier  work  above. 

Her  heart  was  fixed  upon  the  more  glorious  work, 
which  God  has  prepared  for  us  to  accomplish  in 
heaven.  When,  in  1878,  she  was  taken  seriously  ill, 
and  was  told  her  life  was  in  danger,  she  replied : 
''If  I  am  really  going,  it  is  too  good  to  be  true!" 
''Splendid !    To  be  so  near  the  gates  of  heaven." 

This  hymn  was  written  in  1874  and  was  first 
published  as  a  New  Year's  card,  later  in  collections 
of  her  own  works,  and  finally  in  many  hymn  books. 
It  has  proved  to  be  an  inspiration  to  thousands 
standing  at  the  threshold  of  a  new  year. 


12  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 


£>econti  ^unbap:  Cbangelisttic 

*'Just  as  I  am,  without  one  plea"  (125) 
Charlotte  Elliott,  1789-1871 

Many  unsaved  souls  imagine  it  is  difficult  to 
come  to  Christ.  And  this  at  first  was  the  thought 
of  Charlotte  Elliott,  the  author  of  this  hymn. 
Shortly  after  she  became  an  invalid,  with  a  helpless- 
ness lasting  fifty  years.  Dr.  Caesar  Milan  visited  her 
father  and  talked  with  her  concerning  her  soul's 
salvation.  At  first  she  rudely  resented  this,  but 
afterward  repented  and  asked  him  how  she  might 
find  the  way  to  Christ.  He  replied:  "Dear  Char- 
lotte, cut  the  cable.  It  w^ill  take  too  long  to  unloose 
it.  Cut  it.  It  is  a  small  loss  anyway.  You  must 
come  to  Christ  just  as  you  are."  And  so,  just  as 
she  was,  she  came  and  found  the  *'peace  that  passeth 
all  understanding,"  enabling  her  to  bear  her  illness 
with  bravery. 

Twelve  years  later,  while  everyone  about  her  was 
busy  preparing  for  a  bazaar,  she  was  burdened  with 
the  thought  that  as  an  invalid  she  was  utterly  use- 
less herself,  and  brooded  over  this  through  the  long 
hours  of  the  night.  But  the  next  day  her  faith  pre- 
vailed;  and,  remembering  the  words  of  Dr.  Milan 
which  brought  about  her  conversion,  she  took  her 
pen  and  wrote  the  wonderful  hymn,  beginning, 
"Just  as  I  am,  without  one  plea."  Later  in  the  day 
Mrs.  H.  V.  Elliott  entered  the  room  to  tell  her  how 
the  bazaar  was  progressing,  and  while  there  she 
read  the  hymn  and  took  a  copy  of  it.  The  great 
hymn  was  thus  given  to  the  world;  and  out  of  her 
helplessness  Charlotte  Elliott  wrought  a  blessing  to 
many  souls  that  have  been  guided  into  salvation  and 
wonderfully  strengthened  by  her  hymn. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  13 


t!rfittliS>unbap:  (Cbanselisittc 

"'Almost  persuaded/  now  to  believe"   (119) 
Philip   Bliss,    1838- 1876 

In  the  year  A.  D.  62  a  certain  Roman  citizen  was 
cast  into  prison  because  of  a  multitude  of  accusa- 
tions against  him.  At  his  hearing  before  Festus  he 
appealed  to  Caesar  for  justice,  and  was  held  for  trial 
at  Rome.  Shortly  afterward  he  was  asked  to  state 
his  defense  before  King  Agrippa  and  Bernice,  who 
were  then  visiting  Festus.  That  defense,  uttered  by 
Paul — for  he  was  the  accused  prisoner — is  found  in 
the  twenty-sixth  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
and  is  one  of  the  greatest  addresses  to  be  found 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  At  the  conclusion  King 
Agrippa  said  to  Paul :  ''Almost  thou  persuadest  me 
to  be  a  Christian,''  to  which  Paul  replied,  'T  would 
to  God  that  not  only  thou,  but  also  all  that  hear  me 
this  day,  w^ere  both  almost  and  altogether  such  as 
I  am,  except  these  bonds.'' 

A  clergyman  by  the  name  of  Brundage  was  once 
preaching  upon  this  subject  and  concluded  his 
sermon  with  these  solemn  words : 

"He  who  is  almost  persuaded  is  almost  saved, 
but  to  be  almost  saved  is  to  be  entirely  lost."  Philip 
Bliss  was  present  and  was  so  deeply  impressed  by 
these  words  that  he  wrote  one  of  his  most  helpful 
hymns,  based  on  the  phrase  ''almost  persuaded,"  as 
a  direct  result  of  this  sermon.  During  the  Moody 
revivals  many  souls,  almost  persuaded,  were  helped 
by  the  appeal  of  this  hymn  to  decide  for  Christ 
before  it  was  too  late. 


14  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 

jFourtJ)  g>unbap :  iHiggionarp 

"The  whole  world  was  lost  in  the  darkness  of  sin"  (120) 
Philip   Bliss,    1838-1876 

Dr.  S.  Earl  Taylor,  now  missionary  secretary 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  has  visited 
Christian  missions  around  the  world,  and  has  had 
unusual  opportunity  to  hear  missionary  hymns  sung 
in  many  different  lands.  But  rarely  has  he  ever 
been  so  thrilled  by  hymn-singing,  he  declares,  as 
during  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  in  the  Orient.  In  India 
the  natives  have  a  superstitious  dread  of  an  eclipse 
of  the  sun.  They  fear  that  the  sun  is  being 
swallowed  by  a  demon  of  some  sort. 

Once  Dr.  Taylor  was  in  Calcutta  during  an  eclipse 
of  the  sun.  For  days  before  that  event  he  saw  the 
city's  streets  crowded  with  pilgrims  on  their  way 
to  various  sacred  places,  w^here  they  hoped  to  wor- 
ship and  bathe  in  the  Hoogly  River  just  below  the 
Ganges  during  the  time  of  the  eclipse,  expecting 
thereby  to  ward  off  evil.  When  at  last  the  fateful 
hour  of  darkness  arrived  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
natives  thronged  the  sacred  waters,  terrorized  by 
the  eclipse  and  making  a  great  clamor  because  they 
feared  that  a  great  power  of  evil  in  the  form  of  a 
snake  was  about  to  swallow  the  sun-god.  As  Dr. 
Taylor,  looking  from  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Building  on 
the  heights  above,  witnessed  this  terrible  evidence 
of  heathenish  superstition,  he  heard  a  group  of 
native  Christians  singing  in  their  meeting: 

"The  whole  world  was  lost  in  the  darkness  of  sin; 
The  Light  of  the  world  is  Jesus." 

The  effect  was  thrilling !  For  India's  spiritual  dark- 
ness is  due  solely  to  the  eclipse  of  Jesus,  the  Light 
of  the  world,  made  by  heathenism  in  the  hearts  of 
her  bcnic^hted  millions. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  15 

Jf  iftl)  g>unbap 

"Blest  be  the  tie  that  binds"   (118) 
John  Fawcett,   1739-1817 

The  Rev.  Dr.  John  Fawcett,  pastor  of  the  Baptist 
church  in  Wainsgate,  Yorkshire,  had  accepted  a 
call  to  a  London  church  and  had  preached  his  fare- 
well sermon,  when  the  tender  devotion  of  his  pa- 
rishioners compelled  him  to  sacrifice  his  larger  ambi- 
tions for  a  career  in  London,  and  he  remained  with 
them  until  his  death.  As  a  result  of  this  expe- 
rience he  wrote  the  hymn,  ''Blest  be  the  tie  that 
binds." 

A  pale  young  man  was  once  teacher  of  a  class  of 
unruly  girls  in  D.  L.  Moody's  Sunday  school.  One 
day  he  tottered  into  Mr.  Moody's  store,  pale  and 
bloodless,  and  exclaimed:  'T  have  been  bleeding  at 
the  lungs,  and  they  have  given  me  up  to  die.  I  must 
go  away  at  once.''  ''But  you  are  not  afraid  to  die?" 
asked  Mr.  Moody.  *'No,"  he  repHed,  "but  I  must 
soon  stand  before  God  and  give  an  account  of  my 
stewardship,  and  not  one  of  my  Sunday  school 
scholars  has  been  brought  to  Christ." 

Immediately  he  called  on  all  the  scholars,  appeal- 
ing to  them  to  accept  Christ;  and  for  ten  days  he 
worked  and  prayed  with  them  as  never  before  until 
each  member  of  the  class  was  saved.  On  the  night 
when  he  left  for  the  distant  place,  where  he  finally 
died,  says  Mr.  Moody,  "we  held  a  true  love  feast. 
It  was  the  very  gate  of  heaven — that  meeting.''  He 
prayed  and  they  prayed,  and  then  with  streaming 
eyes  they  sang: 

"Blest  be  the  tie  that  binds 

Our  hearts  in  Christian  love; 
The  fellowship  of  kindred  minds 
Is  like  to  that  above." 
Bidding  each  farewell  at  the  train,  the  dying  man 
whispered  that  he  would  meet  them  all  in  heaven. 


i6  A  YEAR  OF  HYiMxN  STORIES 


S>txtt)  ^unbap 

"Be  not  dismayed  whate'er  betide, 
God  will  take  care  of  you"  (i68) 
C.  D.  Martin 

A  BLIND  man  was  seen  crossing  the  street  at  a 
dangerous  place  in  the  Bronx,  New  York  city.  A 
friend  nearby  overheard  him  singing  softly,  "God 
will  take  care  of  you,"  and  asked,  ''Why  are  you 
singing  that  hymn?"  He  replied:  ''Because  I  must 
cross  this  dangerous  street,  and  maybe  one  of  the 
many  wagons  might  strike  me  and  I  might  get 
killed.  But  the  thought  came  to  me  that,  even  if 
it  did  occur,  my  soul  would  go  straight  to  God. 
And  if  he  led  me  across  all  right,  it  would  be  just 
another  evidence  of  his  care  of  me.  So  I  could  not 
help  singing  to  myself,  'God  will  take  care  of  you.' 
Hallelujah!" 

A  little  Sunday  school  girl  once  told  her  mother 
she  was  never  afraid  to  pass  through  a  certain  dark 
hallway  leading  to  their  home,  "because,"  she  ex- 
plained, "I  simply  sing,  'God  will  take  care  of  you/ 
and  I  always  come  through  safely." 

This  hymn  was  sung  at  each  session  of  the  State 
Christian  Endeavor  Convention,  Altoona,  Pennsyl- 
vania, in  19 10.  At  the  close  of  one  of  the  sessions 
a  man,  touched  by  the  song,  inquired  after  salvation. 
A  little  later  some  delegates,  while  singing  this 
song  at  their  hotel,  noticed  several  men  at  the  door 
of  a  nearby  barroom  attracted  by  the  singing.  One 
had  a  glass  of  beer  in  his  hand,  which  he  quietly 
poured  into  the  gutter  leading  to  the  street  before 
the  strains  of  the  song  were  finished. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  17 

g)cbentf)  g)unbap :  ^asfjinston's^  Pirtftbap 

"O  beautiful  for  spacious  skies"    (279) 
Katharine  Lee  Bates,   1859- 

IMiss  Katharine  Lee  Bates,  professor  of  Eng- 
lish Literature  in  Wellesley  College,  is  the  author 
of  this  hymn.  She  wrote  it  in  1893  while  on  a 
Western  tour  that  brought  her  first  to  the  Colum- 
bian Exposition  in  Chicago.  The  patriotic  impres- 
sions made  upon  her  mind  by  the  wonderful  White 
City  she  bore  westward  with  her  as  she  journeyed 
to  Colorado ;  and  when  at  last  she  stood  on  the 
summit  of  Pike's  Peak  and  beheld  the  far-spreading 
panorama  below  and  the  spacious  skies  above,  her 
soul  was  stirred  by  the  thought  of  the  greatness  and 
the  God-given  destiny  of  America.  These  lines 
were  set  ringing  in  her  heart,  and  into  a  noble 
poem  she  has  woven  the  beauties  of  that  mountain- 
top  vision : 

O  beautiful  for  spacious  skies, 

For  amber  waves  of  grain, 
For  purple  mountain  majesties 

Above  the  fruited  plain ! 

Each  verse  is  crowned  with  a  prayer  that  to  the 
physical  beauty  of  her  native  land  God  may  add  the 
highest  moral  beauty: 

America !  America ! 

God  shed  His  grace  on  thee, 
And  crown  thy  good  with  brotherhood 

From  sea  to  shining  sea  ! 

Horatio  Parker,  one  of  the  greatest  of  contem- 
porary American  composers,  wrote  the  music, 
''America  the  Beautiful,"  to  which  this  hymn  is  set ; 
though  it  is  frequently  sung,  and  most  effectively, 
to  the  tune  "Materna"  (see  No.  258). 


i8  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 


CiSdti)  ^unbap :  jtiiMionaxp 

"Fling  out  the  banner  1  let  it  float"  (244) 
George  Washington  Doane,  1799-1859 

George  \\^\shington  Doane,  once  Protestant 
Episcopal  Bishop  of  New  Jersey,  was  born  the  same 
year  in  which  General  George  Washington  died — 
1799.  His  life,  which  spanned  the  years  until  1872, 
was  filled  with  remarkable  activity.  He  graduated 
at  Union  College  in  18 18,  began  his  ministry  at 
Trinity  Church,  New  York,  was  a  professor  in 
Trinity  College,  Hartford,  Connecticut,  and  later 
rector  of  Trinity  Church,  Boston,  when  he  was 
elected  to  be  Bishop  of  New  Jersey. 

Five  years  after  he  became  bishop,  he  founded  on 
the  banks  of  the  Delaware  River  at  Burlington, 
New  Jersey,  a  Protestant  Episcopalian  school  for 
girls,  known  as  Saint  Mary's  Hall,  about  which  the 
best  traditions  of  the  Diocese  of  New  Jersey  have 
centered.  The  Bishop  took  the  liveliest  interest  in 
the  school,  and  watched  over  the  destiny  of  his  edu- 
cational child  with  fatherly  anxiety. 

His  successor,  Bishop  John  Scarborough,  who 
inherited  through  his  office  this  interest  in  the 
school,  once  told  the  writer  how  Bishop  Doane 
came  to  write  the  famous  missionary  hymn,  ''Fling 
out  the  banner!''  In  1848  there  was  to  be  a  flag- 
raising  at  Saint  Mary's  Hall,  and  the  girls  of  the 
school  appealed  to  Bishop  Doane  to  write  a  song  for 
them  to  sing  on  that  occasion.  The  result  was  the 
writing  of  this  hymn,  which  was  sung  for  the  first 
time  by  the  young  ladies  of  the  seminary,  and  has 
been  sung  at  thousands  of  missionary  meetings 
since  then,  to  the  spiritual  stimulation  of  many  souls. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  19 

"Glory  be  to  the  Father"   (282) 

One  of  the  most  universally  accepted  forms  of 
worship  among  Protestants,  who  would  praise  the 
Triune  God  in  song,  is  the  ancient  "Gloria  Patri." 
This  is,  strictly  within  the  meaning  of  the  term,  a 
doxology,  for  a  doxology  is  an  alleluia  or  other  ex- 
pression of  praise  to  the  Three  Persons  of  the  Holy 
Trinity.  '*Glory  be  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son, 
and  to  the  Holy  Ghost"  expresses  the  fundamental 
doctrine  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  at  the  same 
time  utters  worshipful  praise  to  God. 

The  story  of  the  exact  origin  of  the  ''Gloria  Patri" 
is  not  known,  though  it  is  thought  by  many  hymnol- 
ogists  to  have  come  to  us  from  the  apostolic  age. 
The  coming  of  Christ  as  a  babe  in  Bethlehem  was 
heralded  by  a  hymn  of  the  angels  in  the  first  Christ- 
mas gloria:  ''Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on 
earth  peace,  good  will  toward  men."  After  the  Last 
Supper  with  the  Saviour  the  apostles  sang  a  hymn 
and  went  out,  as  it  is  recorded  in  the  gospel. 
Hymn-singing  was  one  of  the  peculiar  customs  of 
the  early  Christians  observed  by  secular  writers  of 
that  age.  There  is  inspiration  to  us  in  the  thought 
that  the  Christians  of  this  day  make  such  frequent 
use  of  the  hymn  to  the  Trinity,  sung  by  Christians 
in  the  apostolic  age. 

It  is  said  that  on  May  26,  A.  D.  735,  when  his 
death  was  approaching,  The  Venerable  Bede,  the 
most  eminent  sacred  scholar  of  his  age,  asked  his 
friends  to  carry  him  to  that  part  of  the  room  where 
he  usually  prayed ;  and  there  he  sang  the  "Gloria 
Patri" ;  and  when  at  last  he  had  sung,  "World  with- 
out end,  Amen,"  his  spirit  fled  to  the  land  of  eternal 
Hfe. 


20  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 

Cent!)  feunbap 

**I  was  a  wandering  sheep"   (143) 
Horatius  Bonar,  1808-1889 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Horatius  Bonar,  a  graduate  of  the 
University  of  Edinburgh,  was  one  of  the  founders 
of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  in  1843.  He  wrote 
a  great  many  hymns  that  are  widely  used.  In  his 
hymn,  'T  was  a  wandering  sheep,"  he  has  told 
the  story  of  salvation  in  simple  terms  that  a  child 
can  understand. 

Dr.  Long  has  written  an  account  of  the  revival 
in  a  girls'  school  in  ^Massachusetts,  where  many  of 
the  girls  had  shown  a  great  indifference  to  religion. 
Among  the  girls  who  laughed  at  the  meetings  and 

their  results  was  one  by  the  name  of  Helen  B . 

They  sought  to  interest  her  in  attending  the  prayer 
meetings,  but  all  they  could  do  was  to  pray  for  her. 
One  evening,  however,  they  w^ere  surprised  to  see 
Helen  enter  the  meeting  with  eyes  downcast  and 
face  very  pale.  After  a  few  hymns  and  prayers 
each  one  quoted  some  favorite  hymn  verses.  When 
Helen's  turn  came  there  was  a  silence,  and  then  she 
began : 

"I  was  a  wandering  sheep, 
I  did  not  love  the  fold.' 

*'Her  voice  was  low  but  distinct;  and  every  w^ord, 
as  she  uttered  it,  thrilled  the  hearts  of  the  listeners. 
She  repeated  one  stanza  after  another  of  that  beau- 
tiful hymn  of  Bonar's,  and  not  an  eye,  save  her  own, 
was  dry,  as  with  sweet  emphasis  she  pronounced 
the  last  lines: 

'No  more  a  wayward  child, 
I  seek  no  more  to  roam.' 

That  single  hymn  told  all.  The  w^andering  sheep, 
the  wayward  child,  had  returned." 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  21 


€lebent{|  ^unbap 

"Jesus,  Lover  of  my  soul"   (167) 
Charles  Wesley,  1707-1788 

In  the  Civil  War  of  the  sixties  many  drummer- 
boys  had  left  school  to  join  the  army.  One  of  them, 
named  Tom,  was  called  ''the  young  deacon,"  as  he 
was  a  great  favorite  and  was  respected  by  the  sol- 
diers for  his  religious  life.  Both  his  widowed 
mother  and  his  sister  were  dead,  so  he  had  gone  to 
war.  One  day  he  told  the  chaplain  he  had  had  a 
dream  the  night  before.  In  his  sleep  he  was  greeted 
home  again  by  his  mother  and  little  sister.  ''How 
glad  they  were!"  he  said.  "My  mother  pressed  me 
to  her  heart.  I  didn't  seem  to  remember  they  were 
dead.  O,  sir,  it  was  just  as  real  as  you  are  real 
now !"  'Thank  God,  Tom,"  replied  the  chaplain, 
"that  you  have  such  a  mother,  not  really  dead  but 
in  heaven,  and  that  you  are  hoping  through  Christ 
to  meet  her  again." 

The  following  day  in  frightful  battle  both  armies 
swept  over  the  same  ground  four  times,  and  at  night 
between  the  two  armies  lay  many  dead  and 
wounded  that  neither  dared  approach.  Tom  was 
missing;  but  when  the  battle  roar  was  over  they 
recognized  his  voice  singing,  softly  and  beautifully, 
"Jesus,  Lover  of  my  soul."    When  he  had  sung, 

"Leave,  ah !  leave  me  not  alone. 
Still  support  and  comfort  me," 

the  voice  stopped  and  there  was  silence.  In  the 
morning  the  soldiers  found  Tom  sitting  on  the 
ground  and  leaning  against  a  stump — dead.  But 
they  knew  that  his  "helpless  soul"  had  found  refuge 
with  Jesus,  the  Lover  of  the  soul. 


22  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 

^tDelftb  ^unbap 

"When  I  survey  the  wondrous  cross"  (86) 
Isaac  Watts,   1674-1748 

Matthew  Arnold  declared  the  greatest  Chris- 
tian hymn  in  the  English  language  to  be  "When  I 
survey  the  wondrous  cross."  At  least  it  is  ad- 
mittedly the  greatest  hymn  of  a  great  hymn-writer, 
Isaac  Watts,  the  father  of  modern  English  hym- 
nody.  He  was  the  son  of  a  deacon  in  the  Independ- 
ent Church,  who  had  no  sympathy  with  young 
Watts's  custom  of  making  rhymes  and  verses  when 
a  boy.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  Watts  was  one  day 
ridiculing  some  of  the  poor  hymns  then  sung  in  the 
churches,  when  his  father  said  to  him,  sarcastically, 
''Make  some  yourself,  then.''  Accordingly,  Watts 
set  himself,  to  writing  a  hymn,  and  produced  the 
lines  beginning:  ''Behold  the  glories  of  the  Lamb." 
That  was  the  start  of  his  eminent  career  as  a  hymn- 
writer. 

He  became  a  clergyman,  but  illness  compelled 
him  to  give  up  the  pastorate,  and  for  thirty-six  years 
he  remained  at  the  home  of  Sir  Thomas  Abbey  at 
Theobaldo,  continuing  his  hymn-writing,  which  had 
reached  its  highest  expression  in  this  hymn,  based 
on  Paul's  words,  "God  forbid  that  I  should  glory, 
save  in  the  cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

Once,  after  this  hymn  had  been  sung  in  the 
Church  of  Saint  Edmund,  London,  Father  Ignatius 
repeated  to  his  congregation  the  last  two  lines  of 
the  hymn  impressively — 

"Love  so  amazing,  so  divine, 

Demands  my  soul,  my  life,  my  all." 

And  he  added:  "Well,  I  am  surprised  to  hear  you 
sing  that.  Do  you  know  that  altogether  you  put 
only  fifteen  shillings  in  the  collection  bag  this  morn- 
ing?" 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  23 


aCijirteentf)  g>unbap :  ^alm  g)unbap 

"All  glory,  laud,  and  honor"   (84) 
Saint  Theodulph,    ?  -821 

Some  of  our  best  hymns  were  originally  written 
many  centuries  ago  in  the  Latin  language,  and  have 
been  brought  into  our  English  hymnody  by  devout 
modern  translators.  In  the  year  A.  D.  820  Theo- 
dulph, the  Bishop  of  Orleans,  was  imprisoned  at 
Metz  by  King  Louis,  the  Debonnaire,  who  was  the 
son  of  Charlemagne.  The  Bishop  had  been  falsely 
accused  of  disloyalty  to  his  king,  but  he  bore  with 
patience  his  captivity  and  the  ignominy  brought 
upon  him  by  suspicious  gossipers. 

While  in  prison  his  meditations  were  upon  the 
King  of  kings,  and,  taking  the  beautiful  story  of 
Christ's  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem  as  his 
theme,  he  wrote  a  Palm  Sunday  hymn  that  has  sur- 
vived to  the  Christian  Church  these  eleven  hundred 
years : 

All  glory,  laud,  and  honor  to  Thee,  Redeemer,  King, 

To  whom  the  lips  of  children  made  sweet  hosannas  ring. 

Our  translation  was  made  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  John 
Mason  Neale. 

An  ancient  tradition  has  it  that  the  Bishop  trained 
a  chorus  within  the  cloisters  to  sing  his  hymn  w4th 
beautiful  effect;  and  once  they  were  singing  it  thus 
while  King  Louis  and  his  court  were  passing  on 
their  way  to  the  Cathedral.  So  enchanted  was  the 
king  by  its  beauty  that  he  commanded  that  the 
Bishop  be  released  from  his  prison  at  once.  The 
following  year  he  died;  but  his  church  canonized 
him  because  of  his  preeminent  piety.  And  to-day 
he  is  known  as  "Saint  Theodulph." 


24  A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES 

jFourteentf)  ^unbap :  (Easter  33ap 

'The  day  of  resurrection"   (98) 
John  of  Damascus,  ?  -780 

Eastertide  brings  a  worldwide  joy,  and  its  com- 
ing is  celebrated  in  many  different  ways.  Dean 
Stanley  once  penned  a  description  of  an  Easter 
celebration  in  the  Greek  Church  in  which  the  hymn, 
"The  day  of  resurrection,"  was  sung  in  the  original 
Greek,  as  it  was  first  written,  and  with  all  of  its 
original  beauty: 

"As  midnight  approached,  the  Archbishop  with 
his  priests,  accompanied  by  the  king  and  queen,  left 
the  church  and  stationed  themselves  on  the  plat- 
form, w^hich  was  raised  considerably  from  the 
ground,  so  that  they  were  distinctly  seen  by  the 
people.  .  .  .  Suddenly  a  single  report  from  a  cannon 
announced  that  twelve  o'clock  had  struck,  and  that 
Easter  Day  had  begun.  Then  the  old  Archbishop, 
elevating  the  cross,  exclaimed  in  a  loud,  exulting 
tone:  'Cliristos  anesti/  And  instantly  every  single 
individual  of  all  that  host  took  up  the  cry,  .  .  .  with 
a  shout,  'Christ  is  risen !    Christ  is  risen  !' 

**At  the  same  moment  the  impressive  darkness 
was  succeeded  by  a  blaze  of  light  from  thousands 
of  tapers.  .  .  .  Everywhere  men  clasped  each 
other's  hands  and  congratulated  one  another 
and  embraced  with  countenances  beaming  with  de- 
light, as  though  to  each  one  separately  some 
wonderful  happiness  had  been  proclaimed ;  and  so 
in  truth  it  was.  A.nd  all  the  while,  rising  above  the 
mingling  of  many  sounds,  each  one  of  which  was 
a  sound  of  gladness,  the  aged  priests  were  distinctly 
heard  chanting  forth  this  glorious  old  'hymn  of 
victory'  in  tones  so  loud  and  clear  that  they  seemed 
to  have  regained  their  youth  to  tell  the  world  that 
Christ  is  risen  from  the  dead." 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  25 

Jf ifteentf)  ^unbap 

'*A11  hail  the  power  of  Jesus'  name!"   (103) 
Edward  Perronet,   1726-1792 

The  Rev.  Edward  Perronet  was  a  most  devout 
man,  who  had  the  courage  of  his  convictions  and 
was  not  afraid  to  suffer  for  what  he  thought  to  be 
right.  He  Hved  in  the  days  of  the  Wesleys  and 
was  intimate  with  them,  and  the  philanthropic  Lady 
Huntingdon  was  his  patroness  for  a  time.  But 
these  friends  he  felt  it  necessary  to  surrender  be- 
cause he  conscientiously  differed  with  them  on  some 
points  of  belief.  His  immortal  hymn,  ''AH  hail  the 
power  of  Jesus'  name/'  has  proved  a  blessing  to 
Protestants  of  all  beliefs. 

One  of  the  most  dramatic  instances  of  its  use  was 
found  in  the  experience  of  the  Rev.  E.  P.  Scott  in 
India.  His  friends  had  urged  him  not  to  venture 
near  a  certain  barbarous  inland  tribe,  whom  he 
wished  to  evangelize.  But  he  went  forward  with 
high  courage,  never  wavering  in  his  duty,  and  trust- 
ing in  God  to  protect  him.  When  at  last  he  reached 
their  country  among  the  hills,  he  came  upon  a  com- 
pany of  these  savages.  Immediately  they  sur- 
rounded him,  pointing  their  spears  at  him  with 
threatening  scowls.  He  had  nothing  in  his  hands 
but  his  violin ;  and  so,  closing  his  eyes,  he  began 
to  play  and  sing,  ''All  hail  the  power  of  Jesus' 
name."  When  at  last  he  opened  his  eyes  he  expected 
to  be  killed  instantly.  But  his  life  had  been  spared 
through  the  singing  of  the  hymn.  Their  spears  had 
dropped,  and  they  received  him  first  with  curiosity 
and  interest,  and  then  later  with  eagerness,  as  he 
told  them  the  gospel  story  and  won  their  hearts  to 
the  will  of  Jesus  Christ. 


26  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 


&>ixtttntt)  ^unbap 

"Stand  up,   stand  up  for  Jesus!"    (202) 
George  Duffield,  Jr.,   1818-1888 

The  hymn,  *'Stand  up,  stand  up  for  Jesus,"  was 
written  during  the  great  revival  of  1858,  that  came 
to  be  known  as  ''The  Work  of  God  in  Philadelphia." 
It  was  based  upon  the  dying  words  of  the  Rev. 
Dudley  A.  Tyng,  one  of  the  most  active  ministers 
in  the  revival.  It  is  said  that,  when  he  preached 
on  March  30,  1858,  at  the  noonday  prayer  meeting 
in  Jayne's  Hall,  five  thousand  men  listened  to  his 
sermon  from  the  text,  ''Go  now,  ye  that  are  men, 
and  serve  the  Lord,"  and  that  before  the  close  of 
the  meeting  over  a  thousand  expressed  their  purpose 
to  become  Christians. 

A  few  days  later  at  "Brookfield,"  not  far  from 
Conshohocken,  Pennsylvania,  he  left  his  study  for 
a  moment  and  went  out  to  the  barn,  where  a  mule 
w^as  working,  harnessed  to  a  machine,  shelling  corn. 
When  he  patted  the  mule  on  the  head,  his  sleeve 
caught  in  the  cogs  of  the  wheel  and  his  arm  was 
frightfully  torn. 

After  a  painful  but  short  illness,  death  finally 
claimed  him.  As  he  was  dying,  his  father  asked 
him  if  he  had  any  message  for  his  fellow  ministers 
in  the  revival.  He  replied,  "Let  us  all  stand  up  for 
Jesus."  That  message  was  borne  to  them  along  with 
the  sorrowful  news  of  his  death.  Dr.  George 
Dufiield,  Jr.,  the  following  Sunday  preached  a 
memorial  sermon  on  his  late  friend,  Tyng,  taking  as 
his  text  Ephesians  6.  14;  and  he  wrote  this  hymn, 
based  upon  Tyng's  dying  w^ords,  as  a  fitting  climax 
to  the  thought  of  his  sermon. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  27 

g>ebenteentf)  g)unbap 

"From  Greenland's  icy  mountains"    (249) 
Reginald  Heber,  1783- 1826 

Bishop  Reginald  Heber,  after  years  of  longing 
for  the  spread  of  the  gospel  in  India,  crowned  his 
career  with  a  few  years  of  most  useful  service  as 
Bishop  of  Calcutta.  He  made  extensive  visitations 
among  the  struggling  missions  nearly  a  century  ago 
and  ordained  the  first  Christian  native,  Christian 
David.  At  last  he  laid  down  his  life,  a  victim  of 
fever,  as  a  result  of  his  labors  in  that  benighted 
land. 

During  the  years  of  his  life  as  rector  of  Hodnet, 
while  longing  for  a  career  in  India,  he  wrote  many 
hymns,  as  well  as  other  forms  of  literary  produc- 
tions, and  won  the  respect  and  friendship  of  Milman, 
Southey,  and  other  litterateurs. 

One  Saturday  afternoon,  the  day  before  Whit- 
sunday, 1819,  he  was  at  Wrexham  Vicarage  with 
his  father-in-law,  Dr.  Shipley,  Dean  of  Saint  Asaph. 
Dr.  Shipley  was  planning  to  preach  on  the  following 
morning  a  sermon  in  aid  of  the  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  and  in 
the  evening  Reginald  Pleber  was  to  begin  a  series 
of  lectures  in  the  same  church.  As  they  sat  together 
with  some  friends  the  Dean  asked  him  to  write  a 
hymn  on  a  missionary  theme  to  be  sung  at  the  morn- 
ing service.  After  Heber  had  retired  for  a  while 
he  returned  and  the  Dean  asked  him:  ''What  have 
you  written?''  Heber  in  reply  read  the  first  three 
verses  of  'Trom  Greenland's  icy  mountains."  The 
Dean  exclaimed  that  they  were  very  satisfactory. 
''No,  no,''  replied  Heber,  "the  sense  is  not  com- 
plete." And  so  he  added  one  more  verse — "Waft, 
waft,  ye  winds,  His  story" — and  the  whole  hymn 
was  sung  the  next  morning  at  the  service. 


28  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 


Ci5f)teentl)  g>unbap 

"O  Love  that  wilt  not  let  me  go"    (189) 
George  Matheson,  1842-1906 

Dr.  George  Matheson  was  one  of  the  most  be- 
loved clergymen  in  the  Church  of  Scotland.  His 
writings  were  numerous  and  of  a  high  order;  but 
the  marvel  of  it  all  is  that  he  was  able  to  accom- 
plish so  much  without  his  sight,  for  from  the  age  of 
•fifteen  he  was  totally  blind.  His  hymn  beginning, 
''O  Love  that  wilt  not  let  me  go,''  was  sung  out  of 
his  blindness  and  gives  evidence  of  the  courage  with 
which  he  bore  his  great  affliction. 

His  own  story  of  how  he  came  to  write  the  hymn 
is  well  worth  quoting:  ''My  hymn  was  composed  in 
the  manse  of  Innellan  on  the  evening  of  June  6, 
1882.  I  was  at  the  time  alone.  It  was  the  day 
of  my  sister's  marriage,  and  the  rest  of  the  family 
were  staying  overnight  in  Glasgow.  Something  had 
happened  to  me,  which  was  known  only  to  myself ; 
and  which  caused  the  most  severe  mental  suffer- 
ing. It  was  the  quickest  bit  of  work  I  ever  did  in 
my  life.  I  had  the  impression  rather  of  having  it 
dictated  to  me  by  some  inward  voice  than  of  work- 
ing it  out  myself." 

William  T.  Stead  quotes  this  letter  from  a  cor- 
respondent: ''At  a  time  of  great  spiritual  darkness, 
when  God,  Christ,  and  heaven  seemed  to  have  gone 
out  of  my  life,  ...  I  heard  this  hymn  sung  in  a 
little  country  chapel.  The  first  two  lines  haunted 
me  for  weeks,  and  at  last  brought  light  and  comfort 
to  my  dark  soul." 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  29 

i?ineteentf)  ^unbap:  iWotfjersi'  3©ap 

"Now  thank  we  all  our  God"  (13) 
Martin  Rinkart,  1586-1649 

The  Thirty  Years'  War  in  Germany  from  1618 
to  1648  devastated  the  land  and  inflicted  incredible 
hardships  on  a  long-suffering  people.  But  the 
German  Protestants  remained  true  to  their  faith 
and  bore  their  trials  bravely  for  conscience'  sake, 
at  last  winning  honorable  respite  from  their  suffer- 
ings in  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  October  24,  1648. 

Among  the  bravest  of  the  suft'erers  from  the 
war  was  the  Rev.  Martin  Rinkart,  who  wrote  the 
hymn  originally  in  German,  "Now  thank  we  all 
our  God."  It  is  generally  supposed  that  he  wrote 
it  as  a  Te  Deum  of  praise  because  of  the  restora- 
tion of  peace  at  the  close  of  thirty  years  of  horrible 
strife. 

Catherine  Winkworth,  who  translated  this  hymn 
into  Enghsh,  once  wrote  of  him:  "So  great  were 
Rinkart's  own  losses  and  charities  that  he  had  the 
utmost  difficulty  in  finding  bread  and  clothes  for 
his  children,  and  was  forced  to  mortgage 'his  future 
income  for  several  years.  Yet  how  little  his  spirit 
was  broken  by  all  these  calamities  is  shown  by  this 
hymn  and  others  that  he  wrote;  some,  indeed, 
speaking  of  his  own  country's  sorrows,  but  all 
breathing  the  same  spirit  of  unbounded  trust  and 
readiness  to  give  thanks.'' 

Rinkart  was  a  skilled  musician,  as  well  as  a  poet ; 
and,  besides,  he  wrote  seven  dramas  based  upon 
the  Restoration  Period  which  were  produced  at  the 
one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  Reformation. 
But  he  is  best  known  to  posterity  through  his 
hymns. 


30  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 

^TtDentietf)  g>unbap :  ^^ttMion 

"Golden  harps  are  sounding"  (lOO) 
Frances  Ridley  Havergal,  1836-1879 

i\Iiss  Frances  Ridley  Havergal  was  the 
daughter  of  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England, 
the  Rev.  W.  H.  Havergal.  He  was  both  musician 
and  hymn-writer;  and  his  gifted  daughter,  conse- 
crating her  life  and  her  talents  to  the  Master,  wrote 
many  helpful  hymns,  setting  some  of  them  to  her 
own  music,  as  is  illustrated  by  the  hymn,  '^Golden 
harps  are  sounding.'' 

Miss  Anne  Steele,  who  lived  and  wrote  some  of 
the  best  hymns  in  the  eighteenth  century,  frequently 
signed  her  hymns  with  the  name  *'Theodosia.'' 
Miss  Havergal  has  been  compared  with  Miss  Steele, 
and  is  sometimes  styled  ''the  Theodosia  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,"  so  influential  has  her  life  proved 
to  be  through  her  hymns  as  well  as  through  her 
many  other  good  works. 

The  Havergal  manuscripts  contain  the  following 
account  of  the  writing  of  this  hymn:  ''When  visit- 
ing at  Parry  Barr/'  Miss  Havergal  ''walked  to  the 
boys'  schoolroom,  and  being  very  tired  she  leaned 
against  the  playground  wall  while  Mr.  Snepp  went 
in.  Returning  in  ten  minutes,  he  found  her  scrib- 
bling on  an  old  envelope.  At  his  request  she  gave 
him  the  hymn  just  penciled,  'Golden  harps  are  sound- 
ing.' Her  popular  tune,  'Hermas,'  was  composed 
for  this  hymn." 

At  the  age  of  forty-tw^o  she  died  at  Caswell  Bay, 
Swansea.  But  shortly  before  she  passed  away, 
closing  a  life  of  rare  usefulness  in  the  salvation  of 
many  souls,  she  gathered  up  her  strength  and  sang : 

"Golden  harps   are   sounding, 
Angel  voices  ring, 
Pearly  js^ates  are  opened  .  .  ." 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  31 


QTfcDentp-f irfiJt  g>unbap :  iHisiJiionarp 

"Jesus  shall  reign  where'er  the  sun"  (242) 
Isaac  Watts,   1674-1748 

Among  the  many  monuments  of  England's  great- 
est heroes  in  Westminster  Abbey,  London,  there 
stands  a  memorial  tablet  to  Dr.  Isaac  Watts,  upon 
which  the  poet  is  represented  with  pen  in  hand  writ- 
ing at  a  table,  and  above  him  an  angel  is  whispering 
to  him  words  of  inspiration.  Thus  has  England 
honored  the  memory  of  the  father  of  modern  Eng- 
lish hymns. 

His  missionary  hymn,  beginning  ''J^sus  shall 
reign  where'er  the  sun,''  has  been  used  the  world 
over  on  missionary  occasions.  It  was  originally 
entitled  ''Christ's  Kingdom  Among  the  Gentiles," 
and  is  part  of  his  admirable  translation  of  the 
second  part  of  the  seventy-second  psalm. 

Probably  no  instance  of  its  use  has  been  more 
dramatic  than  when  it  was  sung  in  one  of  the  South 
Sea  Islands  in  1862.  The  conversion  of  the  South 
Sea  Islanders  from  cannibalism  to  Christianity  is 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  pages  in  the  history  of  mis- 
sionary conquest.  One  of  the  tribal  kings  had 
been  with  many  of  his  people  converted  to  Chris- 
tianity, and  he  decided  to  proclaim  a  Christian  con- 
stitution for  his  government.  Accordingly,  he  set 
apart  a  certain  day  for  the  final  ceremony.  Over 
five  thousand  natives  of  the  islands  of  Tonga,  Fiji, 
and  Samoa  were  present,  rescued  from  the  sav- 
agery of  heathenism;  and  during  the  ceremony  they 
all  united  their  voices  in  singing: 

"Jesus  shall  reign  where'er  the  sun 
Does  His  successive  journeys  run." 


2,2  A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES 

QTfcDentp-sJeconb  S>unbap:  JDecoration  J3ap 

"Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the 

Lord"  {27^) 

Julia  Ward  Howe,  1819-1910 

Chaplain  Charles  C.  McCabe,  afterward  a 
bishop  of  the  ]\Iethodist  Episcopal  Church,  was  con- 
fined in  Libby  Prison  during  a  part  of  the  Civil 
War.  In  his  famous  lecture  on  "The  Bright  Side 
of  Life  in  Libby  Prison''  he  used  to  tell  this  story 
of  the  arrival  of  the  news  from  the  Battle  of  Gettys- 
burg: 

'T  had  a  relative  in  Richmond,  a  stanch  rebel. 
The  day  they  received  the  first  tidings  from  Gettys- 
burg he  came  to  see  me,  his  face  wreathed  in  smiles : 
*Have  you  heard  the  news?'  'What  news?'  'Forty 
thousand  Yankee  prisoners  on  their  way  to  Rich- 
mond!' I  was  astounded!  In  dumb  amazement  I 
listened  to  the  Confederate  officers  speculating 
v/here  the  new  prisoners  should  be  stowed  away, 
and  how  they  were  to  be  fed.  I  went  upstairs  and 
told  the  news.  Despondency  settled  down  into 
every  heart. 

'That  night  as  we  assembled  for  'family  prayers' 
and  sang,  as  was  always  our  wont,  the  Long-meter 
Doxology,  it  trembled  out  from  quavering  voices  up 
to  Him  who  has  said,  'Glorify  me  in  the  fires.'  I 
slept  none  that  night,  listening  wearily  to  the  watch 
calling  the  hours  and  singing  out  as  he  did  so,  'All's 
well.'  When  the  day  broke  I  waited  for  the  foot- 
steps of  'Old  Ben,'  a  character  well  known  to  every 
inmate  of  Libby.  He  was  the  prison  news  agent 
and  sold  papers  at  twenty-five  cents  apiece.  At  last 
his  footfall  came.  He  pushed  the  door  ajar,  looked 
around  for  a  moment  on  the  sleepers,  and  then 
raising  his  arms  he  shouted,  'Great  news  in  de 
papers!' 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  33 

"Did  you  ever  see  a  resurrection?  I  never  did 
but  this  once.  O,  how  those  men  sprang  to  their 
feet!  And  what  was  the  news?  The  telegraph 
operator  at  Martinsburg,  when  putting  those  ciphers 
to  the  four,  had  cHcked  the  instrument  once  too 
often.  There  was  a  mistake  of  thirty-six  thousand! 
More  yet !  Lee  was  driven  back,  the  Potomac  was 
swollen,  the  pontoons  were  washed  away!  I  have 
stood  by  when  friends  long-parted  meet  again  with 
raining  tears  and  fond  embrace,  but  never  did  I 
witness  such  joy  as  swept  into  those  strong  men's 
faces,  where  the  deepest  sorrow  sat  but  a  moment 
before.  Well,  what  did  we  do?  Why,  we  sang; 
sang  as  saved  men  do ;  sang  till  Captains  Flynn  and 
Sawyer,  immured  in  the  lowest  dungeons  below 
and  doomed  to  die  within  ten  days,  heard  us  and 
wondered ;  sang  till  the  very  walls  of  Libby  quivered 
in  the  melody  as  five  hundred  of  us  joined  in  the 
chorus  of  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe's  'Battle  Hymn  of 
the  Republic,'  'Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the 
coming  of  the  Lord.'  " 

This  hymn  was  written  in  1861,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Civil  War  in  the  United  States,  inspired 
partly  by  the  scene  of  troops  hurrying  from  the 
North  to  Southern  battlefields.  All  during  that  ter- 
rible struggle  it  was  the  great  war  song  of  the  Union 
armies. 


34  A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES 


(Ctoentp'tfjirb  ^unbap 

"Lead,  kindly  Light,  amid  th'  encircling  gloom"   (169) 
John  Henry  Newman,  1801-1890 

This  prayer-hymn,  cast  in  high  poetic  form,  was 
penned  by  John  Henry  Xewman,  afterward  a  car- 
dinal in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  while  on  ship- 
board on  Sunday,  June  16,  1833.  It  is  said  that  the 
ship  had  been  compelled  to  proceed  slowly  because 
of  the  dense  fog  that  encompassed  it.  Dr.  New- 
man was  returning  to  Marseilles,  France,  from  a 
visit  he  had  made  to  Italy.  While  in  Sicily  he  was 
taken  seriously  ill  and  on  his  recovery  he  waited 
for  his  ship  in  Palermo  for  three  weeks. 

Probably  both  of  these  facts  entered  somewhat 
into  the  imagery  of  the  hymn,  as  is  evidenced  by 
such  phrases  as  ''th'  encircling  gloom''  and  ''The 
night  is  dark,  and  I  am  far  from  home." 

The  thought  and  sentiment  of  the  hymn,  how- 
ever, were  wrought  out  of  the  mental  darkness  in 
w^hich  Newman  was  then  groping.  Some  time 
before,  he  wrote  this  note:  "Now  in  my  room  in 
Oriel  College,  slowly  advancing,  etc.,  and  led  on  by 
God's  hand  blindly,  not  knowing  whither  he  is  tak- 
ing me."  This  darkness,  beclouding  his  faith,  had 
become  still  deeper  during  the  summer  of  his  Italian 
journey,  during  which  he  wrote  "Lead,  Kindly 
Light."  But  the  expression  of  his  supreme  trust  in 
God,  which  shines  through  these  lines,  so  universally 
popular,  has  helped  many  a  soul  that  has  yearned 
for  guidance  "amid  th'  encircling  gloom." 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  35 


QCtoentj>=fourtfj  ^unbap :  Ctjilbren'j;  Bap 

"Gentle  Jesus,  meek  and  mild"  (174) 
Charles  Wesley,  1707-1788 

John  B.  Gough  with  a  friend  one  day  went  up  to 
a  small  garret  room.  A  feeble  voice  said,  *'Corrie 
in  !"  and  they  entered.  Through  the  gloom  they  saw 
a  boy,  ten  years  old,  lying  on  a  heap  of  chips. 
''What  are  you  doing  there?"  they  asked.  ''Hush !" 
he  rephed;  "I  am  hiding."  As  he  showed  his 
bruised  and  swollen  arms,  he  added:  "Poor  father 
got  drunk  and  beat  me  because  I  would  not  steal. 
.  .  .  Once  I  went  to  ragged  school  and  they  taught 
me  'Thou  shalt  not  steal,'  and  told  me  about  God  in 
heaven.    I  will  not  steal,  sir,  if  my  father  kills  me." 

The  friend  said:  "I  don't  know  what  to  do  wnth 
you.  Here's  a  shilling.  I  will  see  what  we  can  do 
for  you."  The  boy  looked  at  it  a  minute,  and  then 
said:  "But  please,  sir,  wouldn't  you  like  to  hear  my 
little  hymn?"  They  marveled  that  a  lad  suffering 
from  cold  and  hunger  and  bruises  could  sing  a 
hymn ;  but  they  answered :  "Yes,  we  will  hear 
you."  And  then  in  a  low,  sweet  voice  he  sang, 
"Gentle  Jesus,  meek  and  mild."  At  the  conclusion 
he  said :  "That's  my  little  hymn.     Good-by." 

Next  morning  they  mounted  the  stairs  again, 
knocking  at  the  door,  but  there  came  no  answer. 
They  opened  the  door  and  went  in.  The  shilling 
lay  on  the  floor,  and  there  too  lay  the  boy — dead, 
but  with  a  brave  smile  on  his  face.  His  "Gentle 
Jesus"  had  taken  him  home  to  heaven. 


S6  A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES 


*'In  the  cross  of  Christ  I  glory"   (87) 
John  Bowring,  1792-1872 

AMONii  the  hymn- writers  represented  in  our 
Sunday  School  Hymnal  are  to  be  found  a  shoe- 
maker, a  prisoner  in  bondage,  an  editor,  several 
bishops  and  a  cardinal,  a  converted  slave-trader,  a 
lawyer,  a  blind  woman,  a  student,  and  a  college 
professor.  None,  however,  bore  greater  distinc- 
tion, or  won  higher  glory  in  the  public  life  of  a 
statesman,  than  did  Sir  John  Bowring.  He  repre- 
sented the  English  government  in  France  at  one 
time.  Later  he  was  consul  to  Hongkong,  and  after- 
ward governor  of  Hongkong.  He  became  a  great 
factor  in  the  political  development  of  the  Orient. 
Twice  he  was  a  member  of  the  British  Parliament 
and  was  knighted  in  1854.  Besides  his  distinctions 
in  statecraft,  he  won  high  literary  honors  and  was 
the  master  of  thirteen  different  languages,  having 
made  translations  from  all  of  them  into  English. 

In  spite  of  all  these  great  earthly  successes,  and 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was  a  Unitarian  by  faith, 
he  humbled  himself  before  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  uttered  his  faith  in  the  striking  word-picture  of 
this  hymn : 

In  the  cross  of  Christ  I  glory, 
Towering  o'er  the  wrecks  of  time. 

He  lived  to  be  over  eighty  years  old,  wTiting  other 
famous  hymns,  among  them  our  well-known  mis- 
sionary hymn,  ''Watchman,  tell  us  of  the  night."  At 
length  he  died  in  1872  at  Exeter,  his  birthplace ;  and 
upon  his  tombstone  you  may  read  the  inscription, 
'Tn  the  cross  of  Christ  I  glory.'' 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  37 

W\x>tntp-9iixtit  ^unbap :  tlemperance 

''Oft  in  danger,  oft  in  woe"    (217) 

Henry  Kirke  White,  1785- 1806 

Frances  Sara  (Fuller-Maitland)  Colquhoun,  1809- 1877 

Two  authors  are  responsible  for  the  hymn,  ''Oft 
in  danger,  oft  in  woe/'  The  first  verse  was  written 
by  a  young  man,  Henry  Kirke  White,  who  died 
October  19,  1806,  while  still  a  student  in  Saint 
John's  College,  Cambridge  University.  The  other 
verses  were  written  by  a  fourteen-year-old  girl, 
Frances  Sara  Fuller-Maitland,  who  successfully 
carried  the  spirit  of  White's  fragmentary  Hues  into 
the  subsequent  verses,  first  published  by  her  mother, 
Mrs.  Bertha  Fuller-Maitland  in  1827. 

White  was  born  in  Nottingham,  England,  March 
21,  1785.  Not  wanting  to  become  a  butcher,  like 
his  father,  he  became  apprenticed  to  a  weaver  when 
only  fourteen  years  old,  afterward  entering  a  law 
office.  His  genius  as  a  poet  began  to  blossom  while 
he  was  still  a  boy.  A  book  of  his  poems  that  he 
published  at  the  age  of  seventeen  showed  that  he 
had  become  irreligious. 

A  dear  friend  of  his,  named  Almond,  had  become 
a  Christian,  and  told  White  that  they  could  no 
longer  associate  together,  because  of  White's  scorn 
of  the  Christian  life.  This  hurt  White  so  deeply 
that  he  exclaimed:  ''You  surely  think  worse  of 
me  than  I  deserve!"  But  Almond's  courageous 
stand  brought  White  to  his  senses,  and  gradually 
the  young  poet  realized  his  lost  condition  and  found 
his  way  to  the  Saviour  of  mankind.  The  story  of 
his  struggle  toward  the  light  is  pictured  in  his  hymn, 
"When  marshaled  on  the  nightly  plain."  After  his 
death  in  college  they  found  on  some  mathematical 
papers  his  lines,  beginning,  "Much  in  sorrow,  oft 
in  woe." 


38  A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES 


^toentp-siebentl)  ^unbap:  Snbepenbence  33ap 

**My  country,  'tis  of  thee"    (274) 
Samuel  Francis  Smith,  1808-1895 

A  STUDENT,  twenty-three  years  old,  studying  in 
Andover  Theological  Seminary  for  the  Baptist  min- 
istry, wrote  the  American  national  hymn  in  less 
than  a  half  hour  on  the  second  day  of  February, 
1832.  His  name  was  Samuel  F.  Smith,  the  author 
also  of  *'The  morning  light  is  breaking."  The  words 
were  in  part  inspired  by  the  tune  we  call  ''America," 
which  he  had  found  in  a  German  collection  of 
songs  loaned  to  him  shortly  before  by  Lowell  Mason, 
that  master  editor  of  hymn-books  in  the  early  nine- 
teenth century.  Alason  had  secured  the  book  from 
William  C.  \\'oodbridge. 

Authorities  have  disagreed  as  to  where  the  tune 
came  from — whether  Saxony,  Russia,  Sweden,  or 
England,  in  all  of  which  countries  it  has  been  popu- 
larly sung  to  patriotic  words.  Because  of  its  strik- 
ing similarity  to  certain  ancient  tunes,  it  has  been 
claimed  by  various  writers  to  have  come  from  an 
old  French  tune  or  a  still  older  Scottish  carol.  The 
probabilities  are — and  on  this  most  editors  agree  to- 
day— that  the  first  man  to  write  the  tune  in  nearly 
its  present  form  was  Henry  Carey,  an  English  com- 
poser, w^ho  lived  from  1685  until  1743.  Once  when 
regret  was  expressed  to  Dr.  Smith  that  his  Amer- 
ican national  hymn  is  sung  to  the  same  tune  as  the 
British  hymn,  he  replied :  'T  do  not  share  this  regret. 
On  the  contrary,  I  deem  it  a  new  and  beautiful  bond 
of  union  between  the  mother  country  and  her 
daughter."  The  hymn  was  first  sung  July  4,  1832, 
at  a  children's  patriotic  celebration  in  Boston. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  39 

"O  say,  can  you  see  by  the  dawn's  early  light"   (277) 
Francis  Scott  Key,   1779-1843 

Francis  Scott  Key,  author  of  the  ''Star- 
Spangled  Banner/'  was  born  at  Double  Pipe  Creek, 
]\Iaryland,  on  the  estate  of  his  father,  John  Ross 
Key,  an  officer  in  the  Revolutionary  War.  He  was 
educated  at  Saint  John's  College,  practiced  law  at 
Frederick,  Maryland,  and  for  three  terms  served 
as  district  attorney  at  Georgetown  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  under  President  Andrew  Jackson. 

During  the  War  of  181 2  with  England,  Key  vis- 
ited the  British  ship,  ''Minden,  '  in  order  to  secure 
the  release  of  some  of  the  prisoners,  one  of  them 
being  his  friend,  Dr.  William  Beanes,  of  Upper 
Marlboro,  Maryland.  Alerely  because  of  his  sym- 
pathy with  the  American  cause.  Dr.  Beanes  was 
held  by  the  British.  Key  was  successful  in  getting 
the  prisoners  released.  But  just  as  they  were  all 
about  to  depart,  the  British  decided  not  to  let  them 
go  that  night  because  of  the  attack  about  to  be  made 
upon  Baltimore.  Accordingly,  they  were  taken  on 
board  the  frigate  ''Surprise"  and  carried  up  the 
Patapsco  River  to  their  own  vessel,  which  was  kept 
under  guard,  lest  they  escape  and  give  away  in- 
formation to  their  fellow  countrymen.  During  the 
battle  between  the  ships  and  the  forts  their  anxiety 
was  intense.  And  as  Key  walked  the  deck,  eagerly 
awaiting  the  dawn,  which  should  tell  him  whether 
or  not  over  Fort  McHenry  the  flag  was  still  there, 
he  wrote  on  the  back  of  a  letter : 

''O  say,  can  you  see  by  the  dawn's  early  light. 

What    so    proudly    we    hailed    at    the    twilight's    last 
gleaming?" 

On  the  rowboat  that  bore  him   shoreward  in  the 
morning  he  completed  the  song  now  so  famous. 


40  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 


Wmtntp-nintf)  ^unbap 

"Jerusalem  the  golden"    (257) 
Bernard  of  Cluny,  — 12th  Century 

The  pious  monk,  now  known  as  Bernard  of 
Cluny,  was  born  in  the  twelfth  century  in  Morlaix, 
France ;  and  upon  maturity  dedicated  himself  to 
the  service  of  God  in  the  Abbey  of  Cluny.  Whether 
or  not  he  was  named  after  Saint  Bernard  of  Clair- 
vaux,  as  some  suppose,  it  is  known  that  he  was 
much  younger  than  the  author  of  ''Jesus,  the  very 
thought  of  Thee/'  From  within  the  cloistered  walls 
of  the  Abbey  the  godly  man  looked  out  upon  the 
world  about  him,  and  w^as  sick  at  heart  to  see  so 
much  worldliness  and  sin  in  the  life  of  the  people 
of  his  day. 

As  he  meditated  upon  this  sad  condition,  which 
weighed  so  heavily  upon  his  soul,  he  wrote  in  the 
Latin  language  a  great  poem  of  three  thousand 
lines,  entitled  ''Concerning  a  Disdain  of  the  World." 
While  it  is  largely  a  satire  upon  the  sinful  age,  and 
warns  against  the  wrath  to  come,  the  poem  by  way 
of  contrast  contains  the  most  exalted  passages, 
expressing  the  poet's  eager  contemplation  of  the 
glorious  life  awaiting  the  blessed  in  heaven.  Dr. 
John  Mason  Neale,  an  English  clergyman  and 
scholar,  has  made  exquisite  translations  into  English 
from  these  lines  upon  heaven,  and  from  his  trans- 
lations, among  others,  has  been  taken  our  stirring 
hymn,  "Jerusalem  the  golden."  It  has  been  called 
the  "Hymn  of  heavenly  homesickness,"  as  it  ex- 
presses so  tenderly  the  yearning  of  the  devout  soul 
for  "that  sweet  and  blessed  country." 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  41 

3Rt)irtietf|  ^unbap:  illi£(siionarp 

"O  for  a  thousand  tongues  to  sing"   (5) 
Charles  Wesley,  1707- 1788 

Charles  Wesley,  the  greatest  hymn-writer  in 
Methodist  history,  wrote  over  six  thousand  hymns, 
some  of  which  have  attained  the  first  rank  in  Eng- 
lish hymnody.  He  and  his  brother,  John  Wesley, 
admitted  that  they  made  more  converts  through 
their  hymns  than  through  their  preaching. 

Charles  Wesley  usually  celebrated  each  anniver- 
sary of  his  birthday  by  writing  a  hymn  of  praise  to 
God.  Little  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  first  anni- 
versary of  his  conversion,  his  spiritual  birthday, 
should  be  celebrated  by  one  of  the  most  helpful 
hymns  in  use  among  Methodists.  The  opening  line 
of  the  hymn,  ''O  for  a  thousand  tongues  to  sing," 
is  reminiscent  of  a  remark  of  praise  to  God,  once 
uttered  to  Wesley  by  Peter  Bohler :  "Had  I  a  thou- 
sand tongues,  I  would  praise  Elim  with  them  all." 

When  Charles  Wesley  was  converted  he  had  been 
ill  in  bed  for  some  time,  and  the  fear  of  death  had 
often  come  into  his  mind.  On  Sunday,  May  21, 
1738,  his  brother  and  some  friends  came  in  and 
sang  a  hymn.  After  they  went  out  he  prayed  alone 
for  some  time.  In  his  journal  we  read:  *'I  was 
composing  myself  to  sleep  in  quietness  and  peace 
when  I  heard  one  come  in  and  say,  'In  the  name  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  arise,  and  believe,  and  thou  shalt 
be  healed  of  all  thine  infirmities.'  The  words  struck 
me  to  the  heart.  I  lay  musing  and  trembling.  With 
a  strange  palpitation  of  heart,  I  said,  yet  feared  to 
say,  T  believe,  I  believe !'  "  These  memories  he  has 
woven  into  that  wonderful  third  verse  of  the  hymn : 

Jesus  !  the  name  that  charms  our  fears. 

That  bids  our  sorrows  cease  ; 
'Tis  music  in  the  sinner's  ears, 

*Tis  life,  and  health,  and  peace. 


42  A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES 

QTftirtp'firsit  ^unbap 

"Glorious   things   of    thee   are   spoken"    (115) 
John  Newton,    1725-1807 

When  John  Newton,  an  English  preacher  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  in  his  old  age  could  no  longer 
read  his  texts,  he  was  urged  to  give  up  preaching. 
"What!''  said  he,  ''shall  the  old  African  blasphemer 
stop  while  he  can  speak?''  And  in  these  words  he 
correctly  characterized  himself  as  he  had  been  be- 
fore conversion.  Newton  could  never  forget  that 
the  grace  of  God  had  rescued  him  from  the  depths 
of  sin.  His  godly  mother  had  taught  him  the 
Scriptures.  But  she  died  when  he  was  only  seven 
years  old,  and  at  the  age  of  eleven  he  went  to  sea 
with  his  father.  His  life  as  a  sailor  was  full  of 
exciting  adventures  and  full  of  wickedness.  He 
became  a  sea  captain  and  a  slave-trader,  and  was 
enslaved  himself  for  a  time.  For  years  the  only 
good  influence  that  he  knew  came  through  his  love 
for  his  future  wife,  Alary  Catlett. 

One  frightful  night,  when  he  was  twenty-three 
years  old,  the  waterlogged  vessel  he  was  steering 
was  almost  lost.  Thus  facing  death  all  night  long, 
he  surrendered  his  life  to  Jesus  Christ  and  turned 
away  from  his  sins.  Later  he  came  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys,  entered  the 
Christian  ministry,  and  lived  a  Hfe  of  wide  useful- 
ness in  the  service  of  the  Master.  His  influence 
lives  to-day  chiefly  in  the  hymns  that  he  wrote, 
many  of  them  being  first  published  with  those  of 
Cowper  in  the  "Olney  Hymns"  and  similar  collec- 
tions. His  hymn,  ''Glorious  things  of  thee  are 
spoken,"  which  we  sing  to  the  Austrian  national 
tune,  is  one  of  the  finest  hymns  of  praise  in  the 
English  language. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  43 


''Hark,  my  soul!  it  is  the  Lord"  (145) 
William  Cowper,   173 1 -1800 

William  Cowper  is  regarded  as  the  greatest 
English  poet  who  has  contributed  any  consider- 
able number  of  hymns  to  the  wealth  of  our  English 
hymnody.  His  life  was  one  of  great  suffering  and 
was  tragic  to  a  high  degree.  His  early  school  life 
was  extremely  unhappy.  Later,  while  studying  law, 
he  fell  in  love  with  Theodora  Cowper,  who  was  his 
own  cousin.  His  devotion  to  her  he  expressed  in 
several  love  poems.  But  to  Cowper's  great  sorrow 
their  marriage  was  forbidden  by  her  father.  The 
disease  of  melancholia  fastened  itself  upon  his 
mind,  and  his  sufferings  became  most  acute. 

Though  he  recovered,  his  life  was  beclouded 
throughout  by  his  mental  depression,  and  he  occa- 
sionally lapsed  into  the  most  desperate  forms  of 
melancholy. 

Despite  his  great  affliction,  he  wrote  many  of  our 
most  beloved  hymns.  His  association  with  John 
Newton  stimulated  his  interest  in  hymn-writing, 
even  though  it  may  not  have  added  much  wholesome 
cheer  to  his  darkened  soul.  The  hymn  ''Hark,  my 
soul !  it  is  the  Lord"  is  perhaps  the  tenderest  that 
fell  from  his  pen.  The  last  verse  expresses  simply, 
but  exquisitely,  the  anxieties  and  yearnings  of  his 
spiritual  hfe: 

Lord,  it  is  my  chief  complaint 
That  my  love  is  weak  and  faint; 
Yet  I  love  Thee  and  adore : 
Oh  for  grace  to  love  Thee  more  I 


44  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 

"Sun  of  my  soul,  Thou  Saviour  dear"   (46) 
John   Keble,    1792- 1866 

One  of  the  literary  landmarks  of  the  early  nine- 
teenth century,  in  sacred  poetry  at  least,  was  The 
Christian  Year,  the  work  of  the  Rev.  John  Keble. 
A  high  churchman  of  the  Church  of  England,  he 
was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Tractarian  Move- 
ment, which  aimed  at  producing  a  higher  spiritual 
condition  within  the  church.  At  one  time  he  was 
professor  of  poetry  in  Oxford  University. 

From  his  Christian  Year  was  taken  our  hymn, 
''Sun  of  my  soul,  Thou  Saviour  dear,''  which  was 
part  of  a  long  hymn  entitled  ''Evening." 

In  "Famous  Hymns  of  the  World,''  Allan  Suther- 
land tells  this  story  of  Keble's  hymn:  "In  a  wild 
night  a  gallant  ship  went  to  her  doom.  A  few 
women  and  children  were  placed  in  a  boat,  without 
oars  or  sails,  and  drifted  away  at  the  mercy  of  the 
waves.  Earlier  in  the  evening,  before  the  darkness 
had  quite  settled  down,  brave  men  on  the  shore 
had  seen  the  peril  of  the  vessel  and  had  put  out  in 
the  face  of  the  tempest,  hoping  to  save  human  life, 
but  even  the  ship  could  not  be  found.  After  fruit- 
less search,  they  were  about  returning  to  the  shore, 
when  out  on  the  water,  and  above  the  wail  of  the 
storm,  they  heard  a  woman's  clear  voice  singing: 

*Sun  of  my  soul,  Thou  Saviour  dear. 
It  is  not  night,  if  Thou  be  near/ 

The  work  of  rescue  was  quickly  accomplished. 
But  for  the  singing,  in  all  probability,  this  boatload 
of  Hves  would  have  drifted  beyond  human  help  or 
been  dashed  to  pieces  before  morning." 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  45 

ffif)irtp=fourtf)  ^unbap:  iflisfsiionarp 

"The  morning  light  is  breaking"    (246) 
Samuel  Francis  Smith,   1808-1895 

This  missionary  hymn  of  optimism  and  of  chal- 
lenge to  the  Christian  Church  was  written  in  the 
same  year  and  by  the  same  author  as  our  national 
hymn,  ''My  country,  'tis  of  thee."  The  author  was 
the  Rev.  Samuel  Francis  Smith,  of  whom  his  class- 
mate in  Harvard  University,  Dr.  OHver  Wendell 
Holmes,  wrote  in  the  Class  Poem  of  1829: 

And  there's  a  fine  youngster  of  excellent  pith, 
Fate  tried  to  conceal  him  by  naming  him  Smith. 

The  year  of  its  composition  was  1832,  w^hen  the 
author  graduated  from  Andover  Theological  Semi- 
nary, entered  the  Baptist  ministry,  and  became 
editor  of  the  Baptist  Missionary  Magazine.  Little 
wonder  that  he  should  have  wTitten  a  missionary 
hymn  in  a  year  of  such  missionary  interest  to  him- 
self ! 

The  hymn  was  first  published  in  a  hymnal  that 
was  under  preparation  that  same  year,  Hastings' 
Spiritual  Songs.  In  1843  ^^^  author  included  it  in 
a  collection  of  hymns  entitled  The  Psalmist,  which 
he  and  Baron  Stow  prepared  for  American  Bap- 
tists— a  hymenal  that  achieved  wide  popularity. 

Though  Dr.  Smith  two  years  later  left  the  mis- 
sionary editorship  to  enter  the  pastorate  at  Water- 
ville,  Maine,  he  did  not  lose  his  intense  interest  in 
missions.  And  so  after  his  pastorate  in  Newton, 
Massachusetts,  we  find  him  editor  of  the  publica- 
tions of  the  Baptist  Alissionary  Union.  Having 
traveled  widely  among  the  foreign  missions,  Dr. 
Smith  w^as  enabled  to  write  that  his  hymn  ''has  been 
a  great  favorite  at  missionary  gatherings,  and  I 
myself  heard  it  sung  in  five  or  six  different  lan- 
guages in  Europe  and  Asia." 


46  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 


arf)irtp-fi(tl)  g)unbap:  labor  feunbap 

"Take  my  life,  and  let  it  be"    (200) 
Frances  Ridley  Havergal,  1836-1879 

Of  this  hymn,  written  while  visiting  Areley 
House,  in  England,  1874,  the  author,  Frances  Ridley 
Havergal,  once  wrote :  *'There  were  ten  persons  in 
the  house,  some  unconverted  and  long  prayed  for; 
some  converted,  but  not  rejoicing  Christians.  He 
gave  me  the  prayer :  'Lord,  give  me  all  in  this  house/ 
And  He  just  DID!  Before  I  left  the  house  every- 
one had  got  a  blessing.  The  last  night  of  my  visit, 
after  I  had  retired,  the  governess  asked  me  to  go 
to  the  two  daughters.  They  were  crying,  etc.  Then 
and  there  both  of  them  trusted  and  rejoiced.  It  was 
nearly  midnight.  I  was  too  happy  to  sleep,  and 
passed  most  of  the  night  in  praise  and  renewal  of 
my  own  consecration;  and  these  little  couplets 
formed  themselves  and  chimed  in  my  heart  one 
after  another  until  they  finished  with  'Ever,  onlv, 
all  for  Thee !'  " 

Four  years  later  she  wrote :  ''The  Lord  has  shown 
me  another  little  step,  and  of  course  I  have  taken 
it  with  extreme  delight.  'Take  my  silver  and  my 
gold'  now  means  shipping  off  all  my  ornaments 
(including  a  jewel  cabinet,  which  is  really  fit  for 
a  countess)  to  the  Church  Missionary  House,  where 
they  will  be  accepted  and  disposed  of  for  me.  I 
retain  only  a  brooch  or  two  for  daily  wear,  which 
are  memorials  of  my  dear  parents;  also  a  locket 
with  the  only  portrait  I  have  of  my  niece,  who  is 
in  heaven.  But  these  I  redeem  so  that  the  whole 
value  goes  to  the  Church  Missionary  Society." 


A  YEAR  OF  HYAIN  STORIES  47 


QCl)irti>=siixtf)  ^unbap 

"I  think, — when  I  read  that  sweet  story  of  old"  (82) 
Jemima  Luke,  1813-1906 

Jemima  Thompson^  who  afterward  married  the 
Rev.  Samuel  Luke,  wrote  this  hymn  in  1841.  Like 
many  hymns,  it  w^as  partly  inspired  by  a  tune — 
in  this  case  a  Greek  melody — the  pathos  of  which 
stirred  the  author's  fancy  as  she  read  it  at  the 
Normal  Infant  School  at  Gray's  Inn  Road.  She 
once  wTOte:  "I  went  one  day  on  some  missionary 
business  to  the  little  town  of  Wellington,  five  miles 
from  Faunton,  in  a  stagecoach.  It  was  a  beautiful 
spring  morning ;  it  was  an  hour's  ride  and  there  was 
no  other  inside  passenger.  On  the  back  of  an  old 
envelope  I  wTote  in  pencil  the  first  two  of  the  verses 
now  so  well  known.  .  .  .  The  third  verse  was 
added  afterward  to  make  it  a  missionary  hymn." 

One  day  a  newsboy  in  New  York  entered  a  bank 
with  a  bundle  of  papers  under  his  arrn  and  asked 
two  gentlemen  sitting  before  a  fire:  'Tapers,  sirs? 
Three  more  banks  down!"  *'No,"  repHed  one  of 
them,  ''we  don't  want  any.  But  stop !  If  you  will 
sing  us  a  song  we  will  buy  one."  The  boy  agreed; 
and,  expecting  to  hear  a  jovial  song,  they  placed 
the  little  ten-year-old  on  a  table.  But  he  surprised 
them  by  singing,  'T  think, — when  I  read  that  sweet 
story  of  old."  Soon  they  were  both  in  tears.  They 
bought  his  papers  and  took  his  name  and  address ; 
and  the  song  of  the  Sunday  school  lad  turned  their 
thoughts  to  the  olden  story,  "When  Jesus  was  here 
among  men." 


48  A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES 

Qrt)irtp=£(ebentf)  feunbap 

"A  mighty  fortress  is  our  God"   (22) 
Martin  Luther,   1483-1546 

This  great  war  song  of  the  Reformation,  written 
by  Alartin  Luther,  has  heartened  many  a  German 
army  going  into  battle,  and  has  given  courage  to 
many  a  son  of  Germany  amid  the  hardships  of 
strange  lands.  It  was  sung  every  day  by  Luther 
and  his  friends.  Before  the  battle  of  Leipzig,  Sep- 
tember 17,  1631,  the  whole  army  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus  sang  the  hymn. 

The  story  is  still  repeated  by  the  Germans  of 
Herkimer  County,  New  York,  of  John  Christian 
Bush,  who  settled  there  with  his  family  of  six 
children  and  founded  the  village  of  Shell's  Bush. 
On  the  afternoon  of  August  6,  1781,  a  band  of  In- 
dians, led  by  Donald  McDonald,  a  Scotch  refugee, 
attacked  the  village.  Bush,  who  was  working  in 
the  field  when  they  came,  hurriedly  assembled  his 
people  within  his  block-house,  all  except  two  of 
his  children  who  were  captured  by  the  Indians. 
All  afternoon  and  far  into  the  night  they  fought 
furiously,  Bush's  wife  doing  valiant  service  in  load- 
ing the  guns,  so  that  the  men  might  never  be  empty- 
handed.  Each  time  the  Indians  attacked  the  door 
they  were  forced  back.  Once  they  broke  down  the 
door,  but  the  quick  firing  halted  them.  IMcDonald 
was  wounded  and  dragged  within  the  fort  by  the 
Germans,  and  the  Indians  fled.  Then  the  patriots 
sang: 

"A  mighty  fortress  is  our  God, 
A  bulwark  never  failing." 

Again  the  Indians  attacked  and  again  were  repulsed, 
while  Bush  and  his  victorious  neighbors  sang  the 
rest  of  the  hymn  as  a  paean  of  thankfulness  to  God 
for  preserving  their  lives  in  the  midst  of  peril. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  49 


(Et)irtp=eial)tfi^unbap:  J^arbe^t 

''Praise  God,  from  whom  all  blessings  flow"  (281) 
Thomas  Ken,  1637-1710 

The  doxology  of  praise  to  the  Holy  Trinity  was 
written  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Ken,  whom  King 
Charles  H  once  made  a  chaplain  to  his  sister,  Mary, 
Princess  of  Orange.  Ken  was  so  courageous  in  his 
preaching  at  court  that  the  king  often  said  on  the 
way  to  chapel :  'T  must  go  and  hear  Ken  tell  me  my 
faults. '*  The  king  afterward  made  him  Bishop  of 
Bath  and  Wells. 

Bishop  McCabe  said  that  while  the  prisoners  of 
the  Union  Army  during  the  Civil  War  were  incar- 
cerated in  Libby  Prison,  day  after  day  they  saw 
comrades  passing  away  and  their  numbers  increased 
by  living  recruits.  One  night,  about  ten  o'clock, 
through  the  darkness  they  heard  the  tramp  of  feet 
that  soon  stopped  before  the  prison  door,  until  ar- 
rangements could  be  made  inside.  In  the  company 
was  a  young  Baptist  minister,  whose  heart  almost 
fainted  when  he  looked  in  those  cold  walls  and 
thought  of  the  suffering  inside.  Tired  and  weary, 
he  sat  down,  put  his  face  in  his  hands,  and  wept. 
Just  then  a  lone  voice  sang  out  from  an  upper 
window,  ^'Praise  God,  from  whom  all  blessings 
flow";  a  dozen  joined  in  the  second  line,  more  than 
a  score  in  the  third  line,  and  the  words  "Praise 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost"  were  sung  by  nearly 
all  the  prisoners.  As  the  song  died  away  on  the 
still  night,  the  young  man  arose  and  sang: 

"Prisons  would  palaces  prove, 

If  Jesus  would  dwell  with  me  there." 


50  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 

(Kllirtp^nintt)  feunbap :  QTcmperance 

"What  a  Friend  we  have  in  Jesus"   (153) 
Joseph  Scriven,  18201886 

One  of  the  most  helpful  hymns  in  popular  use  is 
Joseph  Scriven's  hymn  on  the  friendship  of  Jesus, 
the  comforter  and  burden-bearer.  Scriven  was  a 
native  of  Dublin,  Ireland,  born  in  1820.  He  gradu- 
ated from  Trinity  College  in  his  native  city.  At  the 
age  of  twenty-five  he  emigrated  to  Canada,  and 
lived  there  until  his  death  at  Port  Hope  on  Lake 
Ontario,  October  10,  1886. 

When  a  young  man,  he  was  engaged  to  be  married 
to  a  lady  whom  he  had  known  and  loved  for  a  long 
time.  All  preparations  had  been  made  for  the  wed- 
ding ceremony  and  the  date  had  been  fixed.  But 
shortly  before  the  wedding  day  arrived  his  promised 
bride  was  accidentally  drowned,  and  he  was  plunged 
into  the  deepest  sorrow.  From  this  sad  experience 
came  a  deep  sense  of  his  dependence  upon  Christ 
and  of  the  great  truth  so  helpfully  expressed  in  his 
lines : 

What  a  Friend  we  have  in  Jesus, 
All  our  sins  and  griefs  to  bear! 

Out  of  the  intense  sympathy  wrought  in  his  heart  by 
this  experience,  he  wrote  the  hymn  to  comfort  his 
mother  in  her  own  sorrow  and  sent  it  to  l^er  in 
Ireland.  How  it  came  to  be  first  published  is  not 
known,  as  he  had  not  intended  it  for  general  use. 
Indeed,  for  some  time  after  it  was  printed  its 
authorship  was  unknown,  being  sometimes  incor- 
rectly attributed  to  Dr.  Horatius  Bonar.  After 
Scriven's  death,  however,  he  became  recognized  as 
the  author  of  the  hymn  that  has  blessed  so  many 
thousands  of  believers. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  51 


Jfortietfi  ^unbap:  3RaUp  ©ap 

"O  God,  my  powers  are  Thine"  (235) 
Frederick  Watson  Hannan,  1865- 

The  Rev.  Frederick  Watson  Hannan,  now  pro- 
fessor of  pastoral  theology  in  Drew  Theological 
Seminary,  Madison,  New  Jersey,  was  for  eight  years 
the  pastor  of  the  Bushwick  Avenue  Central  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  Brooklyn,  New  York  City, 
which  has  a  Sunday  school  of  over  thirty-three  hun- 
dred enrolled  members.  Each  fall  during  Dr. 
Hannan's  pastorate  there  it  was  the  custom  to  ob- 
serve Sunday  School  Day  as  a  Rally  Day,  when 
special  exercises  were  held  not  only  in  the  school, 
but  also  in  the  morning  congregational  service.  A 
sermon  was  preached  especially  to  the  teachers,  and 
a  service  of  responsive  readings  was  prepared,  in 
which  the  pastor  and  teachers  took  part.  After  the 
sermxOn  a  consecration  service  for  the  teachers  was 
held,  and  for  this  service  Dr.  Hannan  always  wrote 
a  hymn,  which  was  sung  by  the  teachers  as  they 
stood  around  the  altar.  The  whole  service  was  very 
impressive. 

The  hymxn,  *'0  God,  my  powers  are  Thine,"  was 
the  consecration  hymn  used  on  September  24,  1905, 
and  was  especially  written  for  that  occasion.  In 
the  Hymnal  it  is  printed  almost  exactly  as  it  was  in 
the  weekly  church  calendar  of  that  date.  Now  this 
hymn  is  being  used  every  year  in  similar  consecra- 
tion services  for  Sunday  school  teachers,  for  it 
breathes  in  song  the  highest  ideals  of  self-surrender 
to  God,  which  is  the  first  condition  for  effective 
service  in  the  work  of  all  truly  devoted  Sunday 
school  teachers. 


52  A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES 


Jfortp=firfi;t  g>unbap 

"Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me"    (175) 
Augustus  Montague  Toplady,  1 740-1778 

The  author,  the  Rev.  Augustus  M.  Toplady,  bit- 
terly opposed  the  doctrines  preached  by  the 
Wesleys,  who  lived  at  the  same  time,  but  his  sincere 
Christian  piety  produced  this  great  hymn,  that  has 
become  endeared  to  many  generations  of  Wesleyan 
followers. 

Years  ago  the  steamer  Sewanhaka  burned  at  sea. 
One  of  the  Fisk  Jubilee  singers  was  aboard.  Be- 
fore jumping  into  the  sea  he  fastened  hfe  preserv- 
ers on  himself  and  his  wife;  but  some  one  snatched 
hers  away  from  her.  In  the  water,  however,  she 
put  her  hands  on  his  shoulders  and  thus  kept  afloat 
until,  almost  exhausted,  she  said  to  her  husband, 
''I  cannot  hold  on  any  longer!''  ''Try  a  little 
longer,''  begged  the  agonized  husband.  ''Let  us  sing 
'Rock  of  Ages.'  "  And  as  the  hymn  rang  out  over 
the  waves,  others  almost  sinking  took  up  the  strains 
of  the  pleading  prayer  to  God.  The  hymn  seemed 
to  give  new  strength  to  many  in  that  desperate  hour. 
By  and  by  a  boat  was  seen  approaching,  and  as  it 
came  nearer  the  singing  was  renewed  until  with 
superhuman  efTorts  they  laid  hold  upon  the  life- 
boats and  were  carried  to  safety.  The  singer,  in 
telling  this  story  himself,  declared  that  he  believed 
this  hymn  had  saved  many  lives,  besides  his  own 
and  his  wife's,  in  that  dreadful  disaster. 

Likewise,  hundreds  of  stories  might  be  told  of 
the  saving  of  souls  spiritually  through  the  helpful 
ministries  of  this,  one  of  the  greatest  hymns  ever 
penned  in  the  English  language. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  53 


jFortp=geconb  ^unbap 

"Abide  with  me!     Fast  falls  the  eventide"  (53) 
Henry  Francis  Lyte,  1793-1847 

The  Spirit  of  the  walk  of  Christ  with  the  dis- 
ciples to  Emmaus  at  eventide  is  reproduced  in  the 
hymn,  ''Abide  with  me."  This  has  been  sung  at 
the  close  of  many  a  day,  and,  indeed,  of  many  a 
Christian  life,  as  believers  have  uttered  it  as  a 
prayer  for  the  presence  of  Christ.  It  was  composed 
one  Sabbath  evening  in  1847  o^^  ^^  ^  deep  sadness 
that  had  settled  down  upon  its  author,  the  Rev. 
Henry  F.  Lyte.  He  had  conducted  his  last  com- 
munion service  that  day  at  the  close  of  a  pastorate 
of  twenty-four  years  at  Brixham,  England.  A 
fatal  illness  had  already  seized  him  and  he  was 
about  to  leave  England  to  prolong  his  life,  if  pos- 
sible, in  the  South.  Toward  evening  he  walked 
down  his  garden  path  to  the  seaside,  and  there 
thought  out  the  imagery  and  many  of  the  lines  of 
his  famous  hymn.  Into  this  he  has  woven  the  sense 
of  change  and  of  helpfulness  that  one  must  feel  in 
the  presence  of  death,  and  also  the  trustful  depend- 
ence upon  Jesus  Christ,  the  ''Help  of  the  helpless," 
which  every  true  Christian  must  feel  in  that  solemn 
hour.  Returning  to  his  home,  he  wrote  out  the 
hymn,  perfecting  its  lines  and  giving  to  the  Chris- 
tian world  one  of  its  tenderest  prayer-hymns.  He 
left  at  once  for  the  south  of  France,  and  soon 
after  his  arrival  in  Nice  his  strength  failed  him,  and 
whispering  the  words  "Peace!  Joy!"  while  he  was 
pointing  his  hand  upward,  he  died. 

Heaven's  morning  breaks,  and  earth's  vain  shadows  flee; 
In  life,  in  death,  O  Lord,  abide  with  me ! 


54  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 

jFortp-tf)irb  ^unbap:  iWiMionarp 

"Christ  for  the  world  we  sing"   (247) 
Samuel  Wolcott,   1813-1886 

The  influence  of  a  motto  or  slogan  when  used  as 
a  rallying  cry  in  a  campaign  can  scarcely  be  meas- 
ured. Many  a .  political  election  has  been  deter- 
mined by  the  popularity  of  some  striking  phrase. 
In  many  a  war  an  army  has  been  inspirited  by  a 
battle  cry,  such  as,  ''On  to  Richmond !"  We  all 
know^  the  inspiration  of  the  "Look  up!  Lift  up!" 
motto  in  Epworth  League  w^ork,  and  of  "The 
Evangelization  of  the  World  in  this  Generation" 
in  missionary  work. 

This  hymn  w^as  suggested  and  partly  inspired  by 
just  such  a  motto,  which  had  been  adopted  by  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of  Ohio.  And 
at  their  meeting  on  February  7,  1869,  this  motto 
was  woven  into  a  legend  of  evergreen  letters  over 
the  pulpit  of  the  church  where  they  met : 
''CHRIST  FOR  THE  WORLD  AND  THE 
WORLD  FOR  CHRIST;' 

There  was  a  clergyman  in  attendance  upon  that 
meeting,  a  native  of  South  Windsor,  Connecticut, 
by  the  name  of  Dr.  Samuel  Wolcott.  He  had  been 
a  missionary  to  Syria  and  also  pastor  of  several 
Congregational  churches  in  New  England  and  else- 
where. He  was  nearly  fifty-six  years  old,  and 
though  he  had  not  done  much  hymn-writing  up  to 
that  time,  before  he  died  seventeen  years  later  he 
had  written  over  two  hundred  hymns.  So  impressed 
was  he  on  this  occasion  by  the  motto,  and  by  all  that 
was  said  and  done  during  the  meeting  to  reenforce 
it,  that  on  his  way  home  from  the  service,  walking 
through  the  streets,  he  composed  the  hymn,  "Christ 
for  the  world  we  sing." 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  55 


Jf  ortp=fourt})  g>unl)ia|> 

"Forward  !  be  our  watchword"   (227) 
Henry  Alford,  1810-1871 

Dean  Henry  Alford  stood  forth  as  one  of  the 
^reat  ecclesiastical  scholars  of  his  generation. 
Twenty  years  of  scholarly  labor  he  devoted  to  his 
edition  of  the  Greek  New  Testament,  and  accom- 
plished besides  a  great  wealth  of  Hterary  labors,  in- 
cluding many  original  hymns  and  translations  of 
hymns.  Probably  his  most  popular  hymn  is,  "For- 
ward !  be  our  watchword."  The  great  Dean  of 
Canterbury,  shortly  before  his  death,  was  requested 
by  the  Rev.  J.  G.  Wood  to  write  a  hymn  to  be  sung 
at  the  tenth  festival  of  parochial  choirs  of  the 
Canterbury  Diocesan  Union  on  June  6,  1871.  His 
first  hymn  so  written  did  not  seem  to  Mr.  Wood  to 
be  adaptable  to  processional  use;  and  he  suggested 
that  the  Dean  go  into  the  cathedral  and  march  up 
and  down  the  aisles,  and  so  compose  the  proces- 
sional hymn.  Accordingly,  the  old  Dean  went  into 
the  stately  cathedral,  and,  slowly  marching  beneath 
the  high-vaulted  roof  and  past  the  ancient  shrines 
of  Canterbury,  where  many  of  England's  greatest 
men  are  sepulchered,  he  composed,  while  joining  his 
voice  to  his  steps,  the  hymn, 

Forward !  be  our  watchword, 
Steps  and  voices  joined. 

It  was  sung  by  the  Canterbury  choirs  at  their 
festival,  but  before  that  day  had  come  the  Dean  had 
passed  on  to  the  higher  life,  pressing 

Forward  through  the  darkness, 
Forward  into  Hght ! 


56  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 


Jfort|>=fiftf)  ^unbap 

"Come,  Thou  Almighty  King"  (i) 
Author  unknown 

The  national  hymn  of  England,  ''God  save  our 
gracious  king/'  is  supposed  to  have  been  published 
first  in  1743  or  1744.  Within  a  couple  of  years, 
sung  to  the  melody  to  which  we  Americans  sing 
**My  country,  'tis  of  thee,''  it  attained  great  popu- 
larity and  gradually,  by  virtue  of  its  widespread  use, 
became  known  as  the  English  national  hymn. 

Whenever  a  song  gains  universal  favor  many 
parodies  and  imitations  are  based  upon  it ;  and  our 
hymn,  ''Come,  Thou  Almighty  King,"  was  written 
shortly  afterward  in  imitation  of  "God  save  the 
king"  in  both  meter  and  style.  Though  it  is  attrib- 
uted to  Charles  Wesley  in  this  hymnal,  the  author 
is  really  unknown. 

In  the  days  of  the  American  Revolution  a  con- 
gregation of  patriotic  colonists  were  worshiping  in 
their  church  on  Long  Island  when  the  service  was 
interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  a  company  of  Hessian 
troops.  The  captain  stalked  up  the  aisle  and  com- 
manded the  people  to  sing  "God  save  the  king." 
The  organist  started  the  tune  that  we  call  "Amer- 
ica" ;  but  the  people,  true  to  the  cause  of  the  Amer- 
ican colonies  and  to  their  God,  sang  this  hymn : 

"Come,  Thou  Almighty  King, 
Help  us  Thy  name  to  sing." 

And  the  soldiers  withdrew  without  enforcing  their 
demands. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  57 


jFortp=s(ixtl)  ^unbap 

"He  leadeth  me  I  O  blessed  thought!"  (177) 
Joseph  Henry  Gilmore,  1834- 

Dr.  Joseph  H.  Gilmore,  the  son  of  a  governor 
of  New  Hampshire,  began  his  career  as  pastor  of  a 
Baptist  church,  later  becoming  professor  of  Hebrew 
in  Rochester  Theological  Seminary  and  afterward 
professor  of  English  literature  in  Rochester  Uni- 
versity, New  York.  In  1862,  the  year  of  his  ordina- 
tion, he  w^as  visiting  in  Philadelphia  and  conducted 
the  Wednesday  evening  prayer  meeting  in  the  First 
Baptist  Church  of  that  city.  He  took  for  his  subject 
the  Twenty-third  Psalm,  that  most  beloved  hymn 
from  the  world's  first  hymn  book.  After  the  meet- 
ing Dr.  Gilmore  wrote  this  hymn  on  the  text,  ''He 
leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters/'  It  came  as  a 
result  of  a  conversation  in  the  home  he  was  visiting 
that  evening  on  the  theme  of  the  prayer  meeting. 
Dr.  Gilmore  has  described  the  occasion  thus :  ''Dur- 
ing the  conversation,  the  blessedness  of  God's  lead- 
ership so  grev/  upon  me  that  I  took  out  my  pencil, 
wrote  the  hymn  just  as  it  stands  to-day,  handed  it 
to  my  wife,  and  thought  no  more  about  it.  She  sent 
it,  without  my  knowledge,  to  the  JVatchman  and 
Recorder.  Three  years  later  I  went  to  Rochester  to 
preach  for  the  Second  Baptist  Church.  On  entering 
the  chapel,  I  took  up  a  hymn  book,  thinking,  'I 
wonder  what  they  sing?'  The  book  opened  at  'He 
leadeth  me !'  and  that  was  the  first  time  I  knew  my 
hymn  had  found  a  place  among  the  songs  of  the 
church." 


q8  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 


Jf  ort|>=s(ebent{)  g>untiap :  iHi£(£;ionarp 

"Hail  to  the  Lord's  Anointed"  (59) 
James  Montgomery,  1771-1854 

James  Montgomery,  born  in  Scotland,  the  son 
of  a  Moravian  clergyman,  was  an  editor  by  pro- 
fession. Though  as  a  child  he  had  joined  the  Mo- 
ravian Church,  he  lost  his  early  piety  when  he 
became  a  young  man;  but  later  in  life  he  was  con- 
verted, and  joined  the  Moravian  Church  again  at 
the  age  of  forty-three.  Thus,  he  became  a  Chris- 
tian warrior,  such  as  he  describes,  standing 

In  all  the  armor  of  his  God; 
The  Spirit's  sword  is  in  his  hand, 
His  feet  are  with  the  gospel  shod. 

He  and  Cowper  hold  the  foremost  place  among 
laymen  of  the  church  who  are  eminent  hymn- 
writers. 

His  hymn,  ''Hail  to  the  Lord's  Anointed,'*  he 
wrote  in  1821,  seven  years  after  he  joined  the  church 
a  second  time.  It  is  a  metrical  version  of  the  sev- 
enty-second psalm.  It  was  written  as  a  Christmas 
hymn  and  was  first  sung  on  Christmas  Day,  1821, 
at  a  great  convocation  of  Moravians  in  their  settle- 
ment at  Fulneck.  At  a  Wesleyan  missionary  meet- 
ing, held  in  Liverpool  on  April  14  of  the  following 
year,  1822,  when  Dr.  Adam  Clarke  presided,  Mont- 
gomery made  an  address  and  closed  it  by  the  recital 
of  this  hymn  with  all  of  its  verses,  some  of  which 
are  omitted  in  this  hymnal.  Dr.  Clarke  later  used 
it  in  his  famous  Commentary  in  connection  with 
his  discussion  of  the  seventy-second  psalm. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  59 

jFortp=eiaf)tf)  ^unbap:  ^ftanfesiffibinB 

"We  plow  the  fields,  and  scatter"    (271) 
Matthias  Claudius,   1740- 181 5 

From  the  German  have  been  translated  many  of 
our  richest  hymns.  Most  of  John  Wesley's  hymns 
in  use  among  Methodists  are  those  he  has  trans- 
lated from  German  hymns,  and  chiefly  those  express- 
ing the  mystical  faith  of  the  Moravians.  This 
harvest  hymn  of  thanksgiving,  *'We  plow  the  fields, 
and  scatter/'  was  translated  from  the  German  hymn 
of  Matthias  Claudius  by  Miss  Jane  Montgomery 
Campbell  in  1861.  She  was  the  daughter  of  an 
English  clergyman,  and  he  was  the  son  of  a  German 
clergyman.  Claudius  lived  to  be  seventy-four  years 
old  and  died  in  1815,  two  years  before  Miss  Camp- 
bell was  born. 

This  hymn  w^as  freely  translated  from  a  portion 
of  a  longer  poem  of  seventeen  verses  with  chorus. 
It  appeared  first  in  a  sketch  called  Paul  Erdmann's 
Feast  It  was  represented  as  the  song  that  was  sung 
at  Paul's  home  by  the  peasants  after  the  harvest 
was  over. 

As  may  be  inferred  from  this  hymn,  there  was  a 
wholesome  cheer  in  the  author's  wTitings  as  well  as 
in  his  life,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was 
not  unaccustomed  to  hardships.  Menzel  has  said 
of  him  that  his  genius  never  reached  its  fullest  de- 
velopment because  he  was  constantly  harassed  by 
his  poverty.  But  he  was  a  man  of  great  piety,  and 
his  influence  for  good  was  very  considerable.  Me 
chose  to  dwell  upon  the  blessings  with  which  God 
enriches  us,  and  from  his  very  heart  he  sang: 

"We  thank  Thee,  then,  O  Father, 

For  all  things  bright  and  good." 


6o  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 

jFortp^nJntf)  g>unbap 

*'The  God  of  Abraham  praise"  (23) 
Thomas  Olivers,  1725-1799 

Thomas  Olivers,  when  a  boy  orphaned  and 
friendless,  fell  into  the  company  of  bad  companions 
and  won  the  reputation  of  being  ''the  worst  boy  in 
that  country  in  thirty  years/'  As  a  man,  he  learned 
the  trade  of  a  shoemaker,  but  continued  in  his 
wicked  ways,  until  at  last  the  preaching  of  White- 
field  got  hold  upon  his  soul,  stirring  him  with  a 
message  from  the  text,  ''Is  not  this  a  brand  plucked 
out  of  the  fire?" 

Olivers  became  converted,  and  immediately  set 
about  helping  the  Wesleys  in  the  work  of  plucking 
other  brands  from  the  fire.  He  assisted  in  setting 
up  type  for  the  Wesleyan  publications,  he  became 
an  efficient  preacher  and,  as  is  evidenced  by  this 
wonderful  hymn,  a  hymn-writer  of  a  high  order. 

One  night  in  London,  he  was  attracted  to  a  serv- 
ice in  a  Jewish  synagogue,  where  he  heard  a  great 
singer,  Leoni,  sing  an  ancient  Hebrew  melody  in 
the  solemn,  plaintive  mode  and  he  became  impressed 
with  a  desire  to  write  a  hymn  to  that  tune.  The  re- 
sult was  our  hymn,  "The  God  of  Abraham  praise," 
which  is  in  a  sense  a  paraphrase  of  the  ancient 
Hebrew  Yigdal,  or  doxology,  though  Olivers  gave 
to  it  a  distinctly  Christian  flavor. 

The  story  is  told  of  a  young  Jewess  who  had 
been  baptized  into  the  Christian  faith,  and  in  con- 
sequence was  abandoned  by  her  family.  She  fled  to 
the  home  of  the  minister,  poured  out  her  heart  to 
him,  and  as  if  to  show  that,  after  all,  her  joy  in 
her  new-found  Saviour  was  greater  than  all  her 
loss  of  home  and  family,  she  sang,  "The  God  of 
Abraham  praise.'' 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  6i 

Jf ittietj)  g>unbap 

"Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee"  (i8o) 
Sarah  Flower  Adams,  1805-1848 

Benjamin  Flower  in  1798  published  an  article 
in  the  Cambridge  Intelligencer,  attacking  the  atti- 
tude of  Bishop  Watson  toward  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  so  offended  the  reverend  gentleman  that 
Flower  was  cast  into  prison.  Among  those  who 
visited  him  in  prison  to  sympathize  with  him  was 
Miss  Eliza  Gould,  who  met  him  there  for  the  first 
time.  After  his  release  they  were  married.  Their 
youngest  child,  Sarah,  became  Mrs.  Sarah  Flower 
Adams;  and  by  that  name  she  is  known  as  the 
author  of  ''Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee." 

In  1 841,  deeply  impressed  by  the  story  in  Genesis 
of  Jacob's  vision  at  Bethel  of  the  ladder  to  heaven 
with  angels  ascending  and  descending  thereon,  she 
wrote  her  hymn  that  has  since  become  so  univer- 
sally popular  and  helpful. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Millard  F.  Troxell  tells  of  the  expe- 
rience of  a  group  of  tourists,  cloud-bound  on  the 
summit  of  Pike's  Peak,  huddled  about  the  fireplace 
in  the  block-house :  'Tt  was  suggested  that  we  sing 
some  popular  melody.  A  voice  began  one  of  the 
many  sentimental  songs  of  the  day,  but  few  knew 
enough  of  it  to  join  in,  so  the  singer  was  left  to  fin- 
ish it  alone.  Then  some  one  began  to  sing  softly, 
'Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee,'  and  before  the  second 
line  was  ended  it  seemed  as  if  all  who  had  been 
strangers  now  felt  at  home ;  and,  for  the  time-being, 
the  place  seemed  like  a  very  Bethel."  Before  long 
the  mists  rolled  away  and  ^'before  us  stretched  the 
most  wonderful  of  views." 

This  hymn  is  remembered  as  the  dying  prayer  of 
our  martyred  President  McKinley. 


62  A  YEAR  OF  HYMX  STORIES 

Jfiftp'firfiSt  S>unbap:  €\)viitmM 

*'Hark  I  the  herald  angels  sing"  (6i ) 
Charles  Wesley,  1707-1788 

The  only  hymn  of  Charles  Wesley's  that  has  been 
admitted  to  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  of  the 
Church  of  England  is  this  Christmas  hymn.  This 
is  true  in  spite  of  the  fact  that,  as  an  ordained 
clergyman  of  that  denomination,  he  was  the  great- 
est hymn-writer  ever  produced  by  the  Church  of 
England.  But,  of  course,  Charles  Wesley  and  his 
brother,  John  Wesley,  belong  to  Methodism  as  well. 
Until  death  came  to  them  they  remained  clergymen 
of  the  Established  Church.  The  great  religious 
movement  founded  by  John  Wesley,  and  inspired 
by  the  hymns  of  Charles  Wesley,  and  known  there- 
fore as  the  Wesleyan  Revival,  was  intended  to 
quicken  the  spiritual  work  of  their  church.  But, 
besides  doing  this,  it  developed  into  organized  Meth- 
odism as  a  separate  church,  and  as  such  has  proved 
to  be  a  tremendous  religious  force  in  the  world. 

This  Christmas  hymn  was  first  written  in  1739 
and  first  published  the  same  year  in  Hymns  and 
Sacred  Poems  by  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  their 
first  joint  hymnal;  and  it  began  with  the  lines: 

Hark !  how  all  ^he  welkin  rings, 
Glory  to  the  King  of  kings. 

Many  revisions  have  been  made  in  the  original 
hymn,  some  of  which  are  contained  in  our  Sunday 
School  Hymnal.  This  hymn  has  been  more  widely 
published  in  hymn  books  than  any  other  by  Charles 
Wesley,  and  is  one  of  the  most  beloved  hymns  in 
the  English  language.  It  gives  such  clear  utter- 
ance in  poetic  form  to  the  doctrines  of  the  incarna- 
tion that  the  full  meaning  of  the  birth  of  Christ 
fairly  sings  its  way  into  the  hearts  and  memories 
of  those  who  worship. 


A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES  63 

jFittP'-ittonh  ^unbap :  Easit  ^afabatl)  of  tfje 
0U^  gear 

"God  be  with  you  till  we  meet  again"   (41) 
Jeremiah  Eames   Rankin,   1828- 1904 

Dr.  Rankin,  a  native  of  New  Hampshire  and  a 
graduate  of  Middlebury  College,  for  many  years 
held  the  pastorates  successively  of  several  promi- 
nent Congregational  churches  in  New  England  and 
Washington,  D.  C,  until  1889,  when  he  became 
president  of  Howard  University. 

While  pastor  of  a  Congregational  church  in 
Washington,  D.  C,  he  became  so  impressed  with  the 
etymology  of  the  farewell  greeting,  ''good-by," 
which  really  means  ''God  be  with  you,"  that  he  de- 
termined that  a  hymn  should  be  wrought  out  of 
this  beautiful  idea.  So  he  came  to  write  "God  be 
with  you  till  we  meet  again." 

When  he  had  written  the  first  stanza  he  sent  it  to 
two  different  composers,  one  quite  famous,  the 
other  little  known,  each  of  whom  wrote  a  tune  for 
it.  He  chose  the  tune  of  the  latter,  W.  G.  Tom.er, 
who  was  then  teaching  school  in  Washington.  Dr. 
Rankin  submitted  it  to  his  organist,  J.  W.  Bishoff, 
a  musical  editor,  and  Bishoff  approved  of  it,  making 
certain  changes  in  it.  In  the  words  of  the  author: 
''It  was  sung  for  the  first  time  one  evening  in  the 
First  Congregational  Church,  in  Washington,  of 
which  I  was  then  the  pastor  and  Mr.  Bishoff  the 
organist.  I  attributed  its  popularity  in  no  little  part 
to  the  music  to  which  it  is  set.  It  was  a  wedding 
of  words  and  music." 

God  himself  alone  knows  how  many,  many  times 
this  hymn  has  been  sung  on  parting  by  friends,  who 
have  never  again  met  upon  this  earth.  But  no  hap- 
pier farewell  can  be  uttered  by  Christians  than  the 
simple  wish,  "God  be  with  you  till  we  meet  a^ain." 


64  A  YEAR  OF  HYMN  STORIES 

3nbex 

PAGB 

A  mighty  fortress  is  our  God 48 

Abide  with  me!     Fast  falls  the  eventide 53 

All  glory,  laud,  and  honor 23 

All  hail  the  fwwer  of  Jesus'  name! 25 

"Almost  persuaded."  now  to  believe 13 

Another  year  is  dawning! II 

Be  not  dismayed  whate'er  betide 16 

Blest  be  the  tie  that  binds 15 

Christ  for  the  world  we  sing 5^ 

Come,  Thou  Almighty  King 55 

Fling  out  the  banner!  let  it  float 18 

Forward !  be  our  watchword 55 

From  Greenland's  icy  mountains 27 

Gentle  Jesus,  meek  and  mild 35 

Glorious  things  of  thee  are  spoken 42 

Glory  be  to  the  Father 19 

God  be  with  you  till  we  meet  again 63 

Golden  harps  are  sounding 30 

Hail  to  the  Lord's  Anointed 58 

Hark,  my  soul  1  it  is  the  Lord 43 

Hark!  the  herald  angels  sing 62 

He  leadeth  me !  O  blessed  thought ! 57 

I  think, — when  I  read  that  sweet  story  of  old 47 

I  was  a  wandering  sheep 20 

In  the  cross  of  Christ  I  glory 36 

Jerusalem  the  golden 40 

Jesus,  Lover  of  my  soul 21 

Jesus  shall  reign  where'er  the  sun 31 

Just  as  I  am,  without  one  plea 12 

Lead,  kindly  Light,  amid  th*  encircling  gloom 34 

Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord 32 

My  country,  'tis  of  thee 38 

Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee 61 

Now  thank  we  all  our  God 29 

O  beautiful  for  spacious  skies 17 

O  for  a  thousand  tongues  to  sing 41 

O  God,  my  powers  are  Thine 51 

O  Love  that  wilt  not  let  me  go 28 

O  say,  can  you  see  by  the  dawn's  early  light 39 

Oft  in  danger,  oft  in  woe 37 

Praise  God,  from  whom  all  blessings  flow 49 

Rock  of  Ages,  cleft  for  me 52 

Stand  up,  stand  up  for  Jesus! 26 

Sun  of  my  soul.  Thou  Saviour  dear 44 

Take  my  life,  and  let  it  be 46 

The  day  of  resurrection, 24 

The  God  of  Abraham  praise 60 

The  morning  light  is  breaking 45 

The  whole  world  was  lost  in  the  darkness  of  sin 14 

We  plow  the  fields,  and   scatter 59 

What  a  Friend  we  have  in  Jesus 50 

When  I  survey  the  wondrous  cross 22 


